Eli5 The sun converts about 4 million metric tons of its mass into energy every second. Does this mean that it’s mass reduces significantly over the span of, say, ten years?

Question

4 million tons a second is a lot of mass to be lost given enough time. Considering the fact that the sun is over four billion years old, does this mean that the sun was physically bigger when it formed?

What about a couple of hundred years ago? Or a few years ago? Could the suns loss of mass imply that it’s shrinking over time?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Mass an volume are not the same. The sun lose mass for the fusion of two Hidrogens, Let say hidrogen weigth 1 Unit, but the two hydrogen fusioned (liike dragon ball) becoms helium, and that weigth 1.5 so the 0.5 remaining unit is converted to energy.

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In time, the volume also becomes bigger as the hidrogen is really tiny in size let say 0.2 but helium is 1.0 .

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Over simplified but something like that is how fusion of elements works.

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The quantity of element (H and He) in the sun it has been massive. From it humble beggining, If the sun was a dog, i’ll say it has one year old. and will live for another 20.