**Ask a monkey a physics question thread**

[OngBonga]

Well that's me told!

As a simple observation, these numbers are so many orders of magnitude smaller than the sun's mass that the sun is within 0.05% the mass it had 4.5 billion years ago, counting only these losses.

Yeah I guess I was being pedantic about the use of the word "evaporate", I mean that word either means to turn from liquid into vapour (which isn't relevant in the case of the sun), or to "cease to exist", which, in the case of the sun, will take a very long time indeed. I'm evaporating faster than the sun!

Definitely no. Mass-energy changes forms from one expression of mass-energy to another and back again all the time.

Sure, but it always has gravity, surely? My point is that matter (or energy, same thing) maintains its gravitational presence, whatever form it's in. My language isn't nearly as accurate as yours, but I'm refuting the idea that the sun's gravity can just "switch off" in an instant.

The core is increasing in density over time.

I didn't know this, and actually it surprises me as the sun expands into a red giant; my assumption (heh that word again) was that increased volume meant reduced density, and hence reduced gravity. But if the core is getting denser, well that will increase the gravity of the sun, right? So it will effectively "suck" the planets in? I figured after we'd burnt to a cinder, we'd drift away from the sun.