The Sun (or any star for that matter) is amazing. Every second it is losing 4 x 109 (4 billion) kilograms of mass as untold sets of four hydrogen nuclei are converted to a single helium one in the process of nuclear fusion.
That seems like a lot, until you consider that it is insignificant compared to the Sun's total mass of 2 x 1030 (or 2 nonillion) kilograms.
Still, it's nothing to sneeze at. Compare the follow amounts of energy of various events in megatons of TNT and Joules
| Event | Energy | |
| (megatons) | (joules) | |
| 1 Joule | 0.00000000000000024 | 1 |
| Energy consumption of New York City per second | 0.0000012 | 5.00 x 109 |
| Energy consumption of New York state per second | 0.0000328 | 1.37 x 1011 |
| Seymour Narrows, British Columbia 1958. 1,375 tons of chemical explosives. | 0.001375 | 5.74 x 1012 |
| Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. | 0.013 | 5.43 x 1013 |
| Fat man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. | 0.02 | 8.36 x 1013 |
| 1 megaton | 1 | 4.18 x 1015 |
| 1 pound of matter total conversion | 9.75 | 4.07 x 1016 |
| Tunguska Event, suspected comet impact in Tunguska, Russia on June 30, 1908. | 10 | 4.18 x 1016 |
| The Bravo test, (one of the Bikini Atoll bomb tests) February 1954 At 15 megatons, the most powerful bomb ever detonated by the United States--far bigger than expected. |
15 | 6.27 x 1016 |
| 1 kilogram of matter total conversion | 21.45 | 8.98 x 1016 |
| Mount St. Helen eruption, May 18, 1980. | 24 | 1.00 x 1017 |
| Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated 11:32 AM 30 October 1961 (Moscow Time) | 50 | 2.09 x 1017 |
| The third 1883 eruption of Krakatoa | 150 | 6.27 x 1017 |
| Hurricane Katrina hitting the U.S. Gulf Coast. (At full power, a hurricane like Katrina releases 10 megatons every 20 minutes.) | 300 | 1.25 x 1018 |
| World War III, computed as the simultaneous explosion of all known nuclear devices (about 15,000 today). | 10,000 | 4.18 x 1019 |
| Energy consumption of the US per year | 9,327,500 | 3.90 x 1022 |
| "Dinosaur Killer" Impact of 10-15 km asteroid traveling at 20 kilometers per second. | 100,000,000 | 4.18 x 1023 |
| Sun's energy per second | 35,380,176,000 | 1.47 x 1026 |
Our Mr. Sun is quite the powerhouse. E=mc2 is a real advantage!
