How long is it till our sun goes supernova?

Question

How long exactly till our sun goes supernova and why will it, is it because it's life span is over?!

Answer 1

It wont ever go supernova . Its to small for that
What will happen though is it will swell up as a red giant . After swallowing the earth and all the planets it will eventually shrink to a cold dense white dwarf star.
But no need to worry this is a long time in the future.

Answer 2

The Sun won't go supernova or become a black hole, it's just not massive enough for that to happen. It will expand into a red giant first, then ignite helium fusion in it's core. The Sun will then shrink again and use helium for energy for about a billion years or so before the helium in the core too is exhausted. It will initiate helium fusion around an inert carbon-oxygen core, expand into a red supergiant then throw off it's outer layers into space forming a planetary nebula, which vanishes into space after 50,000 years or so. The gasses are excited into glowing from the powerful UV radiation streaming from the just exposed but still very hot core. The last remants of nuclear fusion in the core will shut down, and it will contact into a sphere no larger than the Earth. At that point, electrons in the core start packing together and stop the collapse. The Sun is now a white dwarf and it will radiate the remaining heat into space like an ember until it becomes a dark, crystalline, planet like object called a black dwarf many billions of years from now. All the while, the planets will first be cooked in a furnace then frozen over as the Sun dies.

Answer 3

A potential supernova star should have mass in excess of 1.4 times of the sun's. So the sun will never go through supernova because it is not large enough. But it still has a few thousand millions to go before it becomes a red giant and then finishes as a white dwarf.

Answer 4

The Sun will never go supernova because it is not that type of star. But the sun is expected to pass through a red giant stage in 4 or 5 billion years, before it becomes a white dwarf, but that will doom the Earth too. But hey, nothing lasts forever and 4 billion years is a long time.

Answer 5

Our sun is too small to go supernova, or even nova. Look up Chandrasekhar's Limit -- named for the astronomer who determined this, it gives the sizes at which a star can go nova (1.4 times larger than our Sun) or supernova (3.2 times larger than our Sun).

In either case, a star goes nova or supernova (depending on its mass) after it has first expanded from the heat of its internal fusion; if it expands enough, the fusion energy drops (because there isn't enough material close enough together to fuse). This causes the star to cool, which makes it shrink. The faster it shrinks -- due to the inertia of the mass out at the edge -- the denser it gets, which causes fusion to heat it up again. Only this time, the mass moving from the edge to the center has a lot more momentum, enough to compress it much more rapidly by the time it gets close to the center of the star.

Stars above a certain mass (again, 40% or more larger than our Sun) do this quickly enough that instead of fusing continuously as a normal star does, the star fuses in a matter of moments, releasing millions of times more energy in a few seconds than the star normally does.

Answer 6

Our sun will eventually die, but in billions of years time. Its unlikely to go supernova. It will expand, destroying every planet up to Saturn in the process, and then contract, becoming a white dwarf star. There is a chance it could become a black hole.
But hey, I don't think we have to worry about it.

Answer 7

Our sun has about 5 billion years left - it will have burned up all its fuel [hydrogen] by then. It's expected to fade out, not turn into a supernova - it's not big enough for that.

Answer 8

Yes that is correct most it is belived that the sun will go supernova in 4.5 billion years. It is already half way though its life.

Answer 9

Why it will go supernova is because it's either burning up all the toxins and waste that us humans have left lying around up there, and because "God" has that sense of 'humour'.

When it will go? um..... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3....... lol

Answer 10

Hard to say.

Sciences LOVES to say millions, if not billions of years, but if it goes tomorrow they'll have egg on their faces for about 8 minutes.

Then it'll become fried egg.

A few seconds later, no one will be able to critise no one else for nothing.