You’re probably thinking about populations, and the Sun is a Population I star, but it’s impossible to state a specific number of stellar generations that preceded our Sun. The process turns out to be more complex than a simple linear sequence of star, supernova, star. While Sun’s metallicity is definitive proof that it formed from the recycled remnants of earlier stars, the interstellar gas cloud that formed our solar system was a mix of material from many different sources over billions of years. Location also plays a role since a star near the galactic center might be highly enriched after a short time, while a star in the outskirts remains metal-poor for longer. Finally, many regions of the universe experienced sustained periods of star formation lasting hundreds of millions of years. During these episodes, stars were born, died, and enriched the surrounding gas, which then formed new stars within the same ongoing event. The best answer is that our Sun formed from a cosmic medium that was cumulatively enriched by countless stellar ancestors over the course of 9 billion years.

I think an AI feature which summarizes articles that have questions for titles and just answers the damn question posed by the title would be nice.