Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Can the sun explode? If so, why?

If we look at the life cycle of stars, a star the mass of our Sun will not explode (I assume by explosion you may be referring to supernova explosion). Our Sun will continue to use nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium for another few billion years. This reaction releases a large amount of energy and also keeps the current size of Sun, by preventing outer layers from collapsing inwards. Over time, the hydrogen in...

If we look at the life cycle of stars, a star the mass of our Sun will not explode (I assume by explosion you may be referring to supernova explosion). Our Sun will continue to use nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium for another few billion years. This reaction releases a large amount of energy and also keeps the current size of Sun, by preventing outer layers from collapsing inwards. Over time, the hydrogen in the core will run out and the material will start collapsing inwards. At that point, fusion of helium to carbon will start in the core of our Sun. However, remaining hydrogen in the outer layers will continue to fuse to helium. This will cause an expansion of the outer layers and the Sun will become a red giant, a very large celestial body. Over time, these outer layers will be detached from the inner core as the hydrogen runs out. The inner core will stabilize and form what is known as a white dwarf. Thus, no supernova explosion will take place for our Sun.


Such explosions take place for more massive stars.


Hope this helps. 

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