Well, it *is* big, but not big enough to go supernova. There's just not enough mass. A *big* star - like Rigel, or Arcturus - many times bigger than the sun - when they run out of fuel, they'll collapse, suddenly, and go supernova.
In our sun, when it begins to run out of fuel, the fusion reaction will slow, and the sun will actually condense, getting a little smaller... this added pressure will spark the helium of it's core into fusion - and the sun will begin to swell, consuming the planets Mercury, Venus, and finally the Earth.
But, that's about 4.5 billion years in the future...
In our sun, when it begins to run out of fuel, the fusion reaction will slow, and the sun will actually condense, getting a little smaller... this added pressure will spark the helium of it's core into fusion - and the sun will begin to swell, consuming the planets Mercury, Venus, and finally the Earth.
But, that's about 4.5 billion years in the future...
-
The Sun (our star) will explode. You have to think of the sun as a large nuclear reactor. It is burning fuel right now, as it has been for millions of years. It is like a fire. A fire burns very hot and bright when it has fuel. Our sun is massive, many times the magnitude of Earth. Everything inside of the sun is basically fuel.
There will come a time when our sun starts to use up all of the fuel that it has. This will start to change the color of the sun as the energy output lowers. (I'm being very basic here!)
In a few billion years our sun will collapse, meaning that it can no longer produce the reactions that we see now that sustains its existence. The collapse is caused by changes in mass and energy production. The collapse will be prefaced by a solar expansion that will consume Mercury, Venus and most likely the Earth. After this expansion, the gravity in the sun will condense all of the matter back towards the center.
Our sun does not have enough mass (we think) to explode as a supernova. Instead, it will most likely compress into a small supermassive star and then become a black hole. The remaining elements in the core of the sun will become very dense as the space between atoms is made increasingly smaller. This will make even a cubic inch of the collapsed sun more dense than anything that size on Earth.
The sun will explode, it just has millions more times more fuel than anything on Earth that explodes, so it will take a few billion years to do so.
There will come a time when our sun starts to use up all of the fuel that it has. This will start to change the color of the sun as the energy output lowers. (I'm being very basic here!)
In a few billion years our sun will collapse, meaning that it can no longer produce the reactions that we see now that sustains its existence. The collapse is caused by changes in mass and energy production. The collapse will be prefaced by a solar expansion that will consume Mercury, Venus and most likely the Earth. After this expansion, the gravity in the sun will condense all of the matter back towards the center.
Our sun does not have enough mass (we think) to explode as a supernova. Instead, it will most likely compress into a small supermassive star and then become a black hole. The remaining elements in the core of the sun will become very dense as the space between atoms is made increasingly smaller. This will make even a cubic inch of the collapsed sun more dense than anything that size on Earth.
The sun will explode, it just has millions more times more fuel than anything on Earth that explodes, so it will take a few billion years to do so.
-
explosions on earth come from things like nitroglycerin. The Sun is hydrogen and helium, The minimum mass for a star to explode is 4.2 solar masses. The sun by definition is one solar mass. The 4.2 figure is known as the Chandrasekhar limit for the University of Michigan astronomer who determined it and got a Nobel Prize for his efforts, sixty years ago, so you are not too up to date
-
Actually our Sun is too _small_ to explode. It doesn't have enough mass to become a supernova.
-
btw you should of said ''explode'.' there is alot more to it than that. it does explode in many ways anyway.