If the Sun converts 5 × 10¹¹ kg of H to He per second,and 10 percent of the Sun's total mass is available for nuclear burning,how long might we expect the Sun to live?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The total mass of the Sun is approximately 2 × 10³⁰ kg. If 10% of this is available for nuclear burning, then that gives us:

Available mass for nuclear burning = 0.1 × 2 × 10³⁰ kg = 2 × 10²⁹ kg

If the Sun converts 5 × 10¹¹ kg of H to He per second, then the number of seconds required to convert all the hydrogen available for nuclear burning is:

Time required = (2 × 10²⁹ kg) / (5 × 10¹¹ kg/s) = 4 × 10¹⁷ s

This is approximately 10¹⁰ years. Therefore, we might expect the Sun to live for around 10 billion years.

If the Sun Converts 5 × 10¹¹ Kg of H