I've heard from a few sources recently that the Sun is a 1,000th generation star, meaning it had a thousand stars that came before it based on its heavy-element content.

I understand that earlier stars' supernovae created the heavier elements and those were incorporated into the Sun when it formed and we can calculate the generation based on that.

My question is based on the age of the universe and the age of the Sun and the average age of stars in the galaxy.

Basically, the universe is ~13.7 billion years old, the sun is ~4.6 billion years old (and has ~5 billion years of life left), which means it was formed when the universe was ~9.1 billion years old.

For 1,000 stars to live in that span of time, those stars would have to have an average lifespan of ~9 million years (not including time between stars). This equates to each of those thousand stars having an average mass of ~100-150 solar masses so their lives would be sufficiently short to not go over that ~9 million-year lifetime.

So basically, there were 1,000 stars that lived and died before our Sun, all of which were huge monsters. This just all seems so improbable. How can this be?

I've heard from a few sources^* recently that the Sun is a 1,000th generation star, meaning it had a thousand stars that came before it based on its heavy-element content.

I understand that earlier stars' supernovae created the heavier elements and those were incorporated into the Sun when it formed and we can calculate the generation based on that.

My question is based on the age of the universe and the age of the Sun and the average age of stars in the galaxy.

Basically, the universe is ~13.7 billion years old, the sun is ~4.6 billion years old (and has ~5 billion years of life left), which means it was formed when the universe was ~9.1 billion years old.

For 1,000 stars to live in that span of time, those stars would have to have an average lifespan of ~9 million years (not including time between stars). This equates to each of those thousand stars having an average mass of ~100-150 solar masses so their lives would be sufficiently short to not go over that ~9 million-year lifetime.

So basically, there were 1,000 stars that lived and died before our Sun, all of which were huge monsters. This just all seems so improbable. How can this be?

^{* TV shows, I don't remember which ones}

I've heard from a few sources recently that the Sun is a 1,000th generation star, meaning it had a thousand stars that came before it based on it's heavy element content.

I understand that earlier star's supernovae created the heavier elements and those are incorporated into the Sun when it forms and we can calculate the generation based on that.

My question is based on the age of the universe and the age of the Sun and the average age of stars in the galaxy.

Basically, the universe is ~13.7 billion years old, the sun is ~4.6 billion years old (and has ~5 billion years of life left), which means it was formed when the universe was ~9.1 billion years old.

For 1,000 stars to live in that span of time, those stars would have to have an average lifespan of ~9 million years (not including time between stars). This equates to each of those thousand stars having an average mass of ~100-150 solar masses so their lives would be sufficiently short to not go over that ~9 million year lifetime.

So basically, there were 1,000 stars that lived and died before our Sun, all of which were huge monsters. This just all seems so improbable. How can this be?

I've heard from a few sources recently that the Sun is a 1,000th generation star, meaning it had a thousand stars that came before it based on its heavy-element content.

I understand that earlier stars' supernovae created the heavier elements and those were incorporated into the Sun when it formed and we can calculate the generation based on that.

My question is based on the age of the universe and the age of the Sun and the average age of stars in the galaxy.

Basically, the universe is ~13.7 billion years old, the sun is ~4.6 billion years old (and has ~5 billion years of life left), which means it was formed when the universe was ~9.1 billion years old.

For 1,000 stars to live in that span of time, those stars would have to have an average lifespan of ~9 million years (not including time between stars). This equates to each of those thousand stars having an average mass of ~100-150 solar masses so their lives would be sufficiently short to not go over that ~9 million-year lifetime.

So basically, there were 1,000 stars that lived and died before our Sun, all of which were huge monsters. This just all seems so improbable. How can this be?