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Old 19-10-2009, 09:30 AM
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bojan
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Mt Waverley, VIC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coen View Post

The Sun, being big (relative to us), burns through about 600,000,000 tonnes of hydrogen converting it into about 596,000,000 tonnes of helium every second via a nuclear fusion process. That short fall of about 4 million tonnes is what has been converted to energy via E=mc^2 or in joules about 3.595x10^(23)
More perspective:
This huge power averages to ~50W per cubic metre (for the whole Sun), and about 200W per cubic metre for Sun's core.. not very efficient indeed !!

EDIT:
0.273W/m3 average, ~1W/m3 for the core.

Last edited by bojan; 19-10-2009 at 06:31 PM.
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