The sun is ridiculously powerful
Summary
- The sun is an average size star and yet it's total energy output is immense.
Details
- Every second it converts 4.4 tonnes of matter into energy, producing 3.10>26W.
- This is the same amount of energy as all the energy we have used from all fuels and electricity produced in 2005 multiplied by 20 trillion
References
Quotes
Astronomers like to point out that the Sun belongs to one of the most common types of star (G2 dwarfs) unremarkable either for their size or their radiation. Most of their power comes from the proton-proton reaction, the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium that proceeds at temperatures greater than 13 million K. The Sun’s energy production (total luminosity) is immense, seen in terrestrial terms, as thermonuclear reactions in its core convert some 4.4 Mt of matter into energy every second: according to Einstein’s massenergy equation, this works out to nearly 3.9 × 1026W, a rate thirteen orders of magnitude (roughly 30 trillion times) greater than our use of all fuels (fossil and biomass) and primary (hydro and nuclear) electricity in 2005. Four and half billion years ago, as the Earth was formed, the luminosity of the young Sun was about thirty per cent less than it is today. In that time, the sun has consumed just 0.03% of its huge mass but more than half of the hydrogen in its core. The rest of the solar story is of little concern to our civilization: it will cease to exist long before the sun transforms itself, first into a red giant (one hundred times its present diameter) whose energy will melt the planet, and then shrinks into a highly luminous white dwarf: the sun’s epochs are measured in billions of years, the history of complex civilizations has, so far, spanned only about 5,000.