The sun will "burn out"... is that an IF or WHEN???

Answer 1

The question is "When?".
Five billion years from now the sun will run out of hydrogen gas. When that happens the sun will grow about one hundred times bigger than it is right now. And then it will start to become a white dwarf. Our sun will become a glowing hot ember, about the size of Earth. It will eventually cool down.

Answer 2

When. All things must come to an end, and a star's life is no exception. No one knows yet if the star will collapse and become a black whole, or simply run out of fuel, but Sun will eventually stop burning. Fortunately that shouldn't be for another five billion years, so we wont die from it.

Answer 3

Short answer 4 to 5 billion years.

long answer:

The sun, like other stars is doing both a Fusion and Fission reactions. Eventually the fuel (Hydrogen and Helium) will get used up. Depending on the size of the star, they will go through different phases where they start to burn the larger elements, such as carbon, silicon and lastly iron. (the last two stages are ususally reserved for the last few moments of stars and big ones at that!).

Again, depending on the size of the star, it will either collapse and become a nuetron star, or blow itself apart in a supernova. (and there are some other variations).

The stuff that gets blown away are the heavier elements and eventually end up building planets and other stars.

Hence why some music artists reference "we are made from the dust of the stars".

Answer 4

The "burning" of the sun is really the fussion of hydrogen into helium, which converts tens of millions of tons of matter directly into energy -every second-. Eventaully, this hydrogen will start to run out, and the sun will enter its death-throes, fusing helium, then lithium, and maybe a little bit of boron and carbon. During this time, the sun will become a "red dwarf", and will expand in size to eventually engulf and incinerate mercury, venus, and the earth. Then it will probobly collapse into an inert "brown dwarf".

It has been estimated that this will take a few billion more years to happen.

Answer 5

I think it is an if and a when. If the sun burns out i guess we will find out when, or when the sun burns out we will know if it does and by the way
I Love you Stewie

Answer 6

When

Not so much burn out - more like swell into a red giant, blow up, becoming a white dwarf, then turn into a black hole. We've got about 5 billion years of happy yellow sunlight left

Answer 7

It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when, the exact time can not be calculated, but scientists think it will run out in a matter of 5 Billion years.

Answer 8

it's a when. the sun has to go through many changes before that happens. it will go thru it's long life like a star because it is one. trust me i got a 158% in science

Answer 9

It's a when, and the when is approximately 5 billion years.

don't worry, there probably won't even be humans then.

Answer 10

its a when, all stars burn out eventually
but i doubt its gonna happen in your lifetimes