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5 min readThe Sun Is Losing 5 to 6 Million Tons of Mass Every Second — And That’s Fine
The sun loses roughly 5 to 6 million metric tons of mass every second. That sounds alarming until you remember how enormous the sun is. Over its entire lifetime, the total mass lost amounts to only about 0.03 percent of its original mass. The sun, as Lika Guhathakurta puts it, “maintains its weight very well.” This is one of the many counterintuitive facts that emerge when you look closely at our nearest star — a star we live inside the atmosphere of, whether we realize it or not.
Guhathakurta is a heliophysicist, a term she notes is only about twenty years old. She came to the sun almost by accident, trained originally as an astrophysicist interested in distant stars. Then she realized: “We have one star which sits only eight light minutes from us and allows us to examine it in exquisite detail.” The sun became the most exciting laboratory she could imagine — a place where we can watch its surface change, listen to its interior, and fly through its atmosphere.
How the Sun Leaks: Two Ways Mass Escapes
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:35) **Introduction & Guest Bio** - Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice welcome back heliophysicist Lika Guhathakurta.
- 2 (05:36) **Helioseismology: How We "Hear" the Sun's Interior** - Tyson asks how scientists can study the sun's interior since it's not solid.
- 3 (09:14) **Question: How Much Mass Has the Sun Lost?** - Patron Lothar asks about the sun's total mass loss since it began fusion.
- 4 (12:22) **How Does the Sun Lose Particles Despite Its Gravity?** - Tyson asks why solar wind particles escape the sun's gravity.
- 5 (16:04) **Question: Does the Sun Make Noise?** - Patron Corey asks if the sun makes sound.
- 6 (19:54) **What Causes the Sun's Pressure Waves?** - Tyson asks if the pressure waves come from explosions on the sun.
- 7 (21:42) **Question: Everything About the Heliosphere** - Patron Monopoly World asks for a full explanation of the heliosphere.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
What does it look like beneath the surface of the sun? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice discuss the heliosphere, the Parker Solar Probe, and solar storms with heliophysicist Lika Guhathakurta.
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Thanks to our Patrons Keith Edwards James Murphy, River Harlan, Dashing Design Diva, Zach Ross, Federico Varano, Mark Ballard, Andres Franco-Osorio, Pascal, Emmanuel Cooper, Silvester Dimitrov, Ryan Eldridge, Ricky Isbell, David Hall, Angela Johnson, Demetrius Goosbey II, Morris Griffing, Cole Carter, Adam Huber, J B, Don Bailey, Tom Reed, Aaron Palmer, Odin Drengr, Demba Mdoye, Clay Mattson, Jason aka asmrpeople, Sage, Angel Garcia, Richard Swenson, Rich Elkerton, Kirby Sorensen, Mike Kakeeh, Kodi, John Kremer, Dwayne Boychuk, Jordan Burnam, Brittany Johnson, Aidan M, jared higbee, Theo Chambers, Levi Furber, Kelly, Hubert Dąbrowski, Julio Cataño, StellarScout, Margot Lane, Joudi Saadeh, David Foy, Jacob Sopko, Dell Rabinowitz, and Dominic Strong for supporting us this week.
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