What happens to the suns mass?
You’ve heard of Einstein’s famous equation E=mc^2 right? This is exactly where the Sun’s mass is going. It is being converted directly into energy through the process of fusion. When two hydrogen nuclei fuse and create a helium nucleus, the number of protons and neutrons is constant, but the helium nucleus weighs just slightly less than the two hydrogen nuclei did. This difference in mass is lost in the form of energy. This energy is the light and heat and radiation that comes from the Sun and warms the Earth. The Sun is also venting off some of its mass via the solar wind, but this is not nearly as rapid as the mass to energy conversion rate.
