What do you think will happen when the Sun finally explodes?

Question

I know that there is a lot of thought about the 2012 apocalypse. I, personally, don't believe it. This isn't the question though.

Say that 2012 was just a rumor. It's far into the future. It will be much warmer because the Sun expands and gets red. So the Sun will be slightly closer to Earth. What do you predict will happen when the Sun does blow up? Will it create a black hole? Will it burn up other planets? I know the Sun is a small star compared to others that were discovered, but just for arguements sake.

Answer 1

the sun doesn't have enough mass to die and become a black whole. at first, it would swell into a red giant, and expand into the orbits of mercury, venus, earth and up to mars.

earth, in the process, would slowly die before the sun itself reached our orbit. even though it's cooler from swelling into a red giant, it is still insanley hot and would boil away all our water into vapor, and everything would either die or melt from the extreme heat of the expanding sun.

when all of it's fuel is nearly burned out, it will shrink into a white dwarf, which is many times smaller than our earth. It will continually get dimmer and dimmer, until there is no nuclear fusion occuring in it's core and it is done radiating, and will be named a black dwarf.

However, this will not happen for approximately 5 billion years. so it will have no correlation to the assumed apocalypse in 2012.

Answer 2

We measure the mass of stars by the mass of our own sun and if  the mass of the star is aproximately 1.4 times the mass of our sun it can not become a white dwarf but our sun is (obviously) below this limit so it's ultimate fate is that of a white dwarf.

And as others have said it will go through a red giant stage and incinerate earth. But, as they also have pointed out that's not for another 4.5 BILLION years.

If humans are still around maybe they will have figured out how to leave the area by that time. But I doubt they'll still be around.

Answer 3

Obviously the world would freeze because the sun supplies all of the world's heat so you would have 8 minutes to live and then the world would completely freeze.

Answer 4

Our sun is only halfway through its 10 billion year lifespan.  Near the end of that, however, it will not explode in the "bang" sense.  When hydrogen runs out in the core, it will contract, heat up, and begin fusing helium into carbon and oxygen.  The outer layers will expand into a red giant, possibly swallowing the earth.  At the very end, helium in the core will run out and it will contract further into a white dwarf the size of the earth.  The outer layers will be blown away by the intense ultraviolet radiation produced by the white dwarf, flying into space creating what's known as a planetary nebula.

Answer 5

black hole?no. our sun is too small. if you can stay for a few billion years, may be you can see it yourself wether sun can create a black hole.

Answer 6

magical unicorns will run around granting our wishes!!

honestly, im serious. an imaginary cause must have an imaginary effect.

the sun is not massive enough to explode. it will expand, and then cool down into a white dwarf.

Answer 7

The Sun does not have enough mass to go Supernova (explode).  The Sun will expand to a red giant, engulfing Mercury and Venus, and laying waste to the Earth.  Then, when there is not enough fuel left to keep the Sun in its expanded state it will collapse into a White Dwarf.

But, this will not happen in 4 years, it will happen millions of years from now.

.

Answer 8

Each body of mass has gravity in itself (even a ball, though negligible because of the small mass it has) , and the larger the mass the greater the pull of gravity. So if the sun will get bigger the earth will be pulled to it, plus the sun gets nearer to the earth cause it becomes big. When the gravity of our sun (when it becomes big) overcomes earth's inertia(which keeps it revolving around the sun) we'll go through a curved path to the sun itself and melt before we get to see the crash. But before it crashes earth's revolution speed will change and will get faster.

Try the collision interactive thing in encarta encyclopedia and youll know what i mean. Even if they do said it will die after 4.5 billion years, i think 2 billion years is long enough for the sun to grow in size and incinerate earth.

And about the 2012, its actually an ancient MAYAN prediction as to when the world will end, but does not say how it will. The exact date in the Mayan Calendar is December 23rd 2012.

Joe's answer is really an odd-one-out and the fact that it wont be 8 minutes cause the sun and the earth will get near each other.

Answer 9

The Sun will get slowly brighter over the next 4 or 5 billion years before it suddenly gets much brighter and bloats up into a red giant. Earth will be totally burned by that. But even before the Sun reaches the red giant stage the gradual brightening will have already boiled the oceans dry and sterilized Earth. But that won't be for about one billion years, and this is not the cause of the present global warming because the slow brightening scientists say is happening is too slow to detect. It is based on theories about how stars use up their nuclear fuel and not on actual measurements of any change in the brightness of the Sun.

Answer 10

The Sun isn't massive enough to form a black hole.  It will swell up into a red giant, swallowing Mercury, Venus, Earth, and possibly Mars.  This will happen in about 5 billion years.

The Earth will be charred into a crispy hulk.

Answer 11

the sun doesnt have enough mass to go supernova (explode), and on top of it, the sun isnt supposed to go out for another 4.5 billion years.