As a standard earthling, we have long been accustomed to the favor of the sun, which is like a kind elder, constantly throwing its light and heat onto the earth, making everything on the earth grow and become a blue planet full of life. However, the energy released by the sun is not "exclusive to the earth", in fact, the energy radiated by the sun to our earth accounts for only about 1/2 billion of its total energy, which can be said to be very small.
I believe that everyone will be more curious about how much energy the sun, a huge "fireball", has. To illustrate this question, we might as well explore how long the sun can release enough energy in a second for humans to use.
As the "king" of the solar system, the sun alone occupies about 99.86% of the mass of the solar system, and inside it, an average of about 4 million tons of mass will be converted into energy by nuclear fusion reactions every second, according to Einstein's mass-energy equation E = MC^2, we can roughly calculate that the energy released by the sun in one second is about 3.6 x 10^26 (36 billion billion) joules.
According to the latest statistics, the total amount of energy consumed by humans on Earth is about 5 x 10^20 (5 trillion billion) joules per year, and after a simple calculation, we have come up with a surprising result: the sun releases enough energy in one second to use for human beings for 720,000 years. You know, this is just the energy released by the sun for a second!
It should be noted that the above calculations of the Sun are only very rough calculations, in fact, the data given by scientists is a little higher than this (about 3.828 x 10^26 joules), and this number will climb further as the fusion reaction inside the Sun gradually strengthens.
After seeing the answer, we understand the smallness of human beings, but we do not have to be discouraged, because from another point of view, in the vast universe, our human civilization still has unimaginable room for development.
Although the history of mankind is millions of years, the real rapid development of our civilization is the matter of hundreds of years. Therefore, it can be said that, if there is no accident, human civilization will reach a new height in the near future.
According to the "Kardashev Civilization Level", a Level 2 civilization can fully utilize all the energy of its star system (including the host star). This means that for humans entering a Level 2 civilization, the sun is likely to be just a battery with sufficient power.
Some people may ask, what do human beings want so much energy to do, is it because the light bulbs in their own homes are not bright enough? In fact, the degree of energy consumption is only an indicator, it marks the true level of technology of a civilization. Compared with before, our modern level of science and technology is much more developed, so the degree of energy consumption is many orders of magnitude higher than in ancient times, and correspondingly, the energy consumption degree of more advanced civilizations must be much higher than that of us now.
By the way, the energy released by the sun in one second is enough for humans to use for 720,000 years, which seems to be very powerful, but in the universe it is nothing at all. For example, a gamma-ray burst can release the sum of energy equivalent to the sun "burning" for 1 trillion years in a very short period of time (generally 0.1-1000 seconds), and the energy released by a quasar can be as high as a thousand times that of the entire milky way.
Understanding the smallness of human beings, we can work harder to develop ourselves, the energy in the universe is immeasurable, as long as we master the right method, perhaps in the distant future, we can become the master of the universe.