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

While it does do this, most of the mass isn’t lost but *converted* into other elements. The sun isn’t like a fire where it consumes its fuel but a reactor that changes it from one form into another with the byproduct being energy.