where does the sun get the matter that it consumes?

Question

the sun consumes over 40 billion tons of matter every second.....where does it come from

Answer 1

It was made like that, with adequate fuel to last a few more eons!

Answer 2

Itself. The sun combines hydrogen into helium atoms, which is a fusion reaction.

And the numbers are a little off:

"Each second, more than 4 million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun's core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will evolve into a red giant and then a white dwarf, creating a planetary nebula in the process." -Wikipedia

So, the mass of the sun is changing all the time. But because it is so massive, the difference in mass is not noticable to humans unless carefully observed in a scientific way.

Answer 3

It recycles fuel in fusion and fission so it has the same fuel and amount repeatedly. The amount of matter and density of the matter in the sun would make 40 billion tons as much as the empire estate building mass which is nothing to Earth's scale let alone the sun's scale.
The elements of the sun is Hydrogen; protium, deuterium and tritium.
Lithium, Helium and Carbon (Very little Carbon).

Answer 4

The sun is *huge*, so that amount of matter is a very small percentage of the total mass of the sun. In fact, it will last another 5 billion years consuming at that rate!

Answer 5

The sun (and the planets) were formed from a giant gas cloud. The cloud condensed and formed the sun and the planets. The sun is still fusing the gas that it was initially created from.

The sun has a mass of about 2x10^27 tons or 2 billion, billion, billion tons. That'll last a while.

Answer 6

After the big bang, all of the matter in the universe was in the form of energy. When the universe had expanded enough, the density of the energy lowered enough that matter was able to "decouple" from the energy to form protons/neutrons etc..
These protons are hydrogen, and hydrogen still makes up something like 98% of the "baryonic" matter in the universe.
When the sun burns, the matter is not destroyed, but just undergoes nuclear fusion, which combines hydrogen atoms into helium and other heavier elements releasing a huge amount of energy.

Answer 7

The sun is HUGE .. the matter being consumed (transformed actually) doesn't come "from" anywhere. The sun is consuming itself. This is why all stars will eventually die in one way or another.

Answer 8

To reiterate...the sun fuses the hydrogen it already contains.

The 4,000,000 tons of mass converted to energy per second (it takes over 3,000,000 tons per second to account for the solar flux we observe) implies a much, much larger mass of hydrogen converted to helium, since the fractional loss in mass for the reactions in question is small.

But the sun is oh, so big...

All things considered the reaction rate is incredibly slow, compared to those we can produce. For example, the final stage of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon releases energy at a rate comparable to several percent of the sun's entire output...for a tiny fraction of a second. (~25% in the case of the largest ever tested)

Answer 9

It's already there. Stars are massively dense - so dense in fact that it's hard to fathom. The matter condenses down until the atoms fuse together and release energy (nuclear fussion). And, there's enough matter there to last for several more million years.

Answer 10

It consumes the matter that it had when it was born.