how come the sun will not go supernova?

Answer 1

Supernova happens when a heavy star has gone through all the progression of fusing lighter elements into heavier ones all the way to iron and heavier nucleus, which consumes energy -- instead of releasing it -- in fusion. At the time where to core is full of iron, the energy production stops and the outer layer of the star collapse, and bounce off the core in a supernova explosion.
Our sun is not massive enough to go past the fusing helium phase (it is presenelty fusing hydrogen, and will get to the relatively short helium burning phase in about 5 billion years; that phase will last only a few million years) so it will no go supernova.

Answer 2

According to contemporary gas model theory, the sun produces energy by fusing hydrogen into helium. After billions of years, predominantly hydrogen stars eventually "fuse" all their hydrogen atoms in helium atoms. Once all the hydrogen is used up, the sun enters into a "red giant" phase and begins to fuse helium into other heavier elements. This process continues through the various elements until what is left is mostly iron. Because of an iron atom's internal atomic configuration, iron cannot fuse into any other element and gain any energy from it. Once a star reaches this stage of being mostly iron, it tends to go "supernova".

Our sun doesn't have enough mass to go supernova and collapse to a pulsar or black hole, but it will certainly be energetic enough to vaporise the planets.

Answer 3

Our sun will never supernova because it lacks the mass (gravitational force) to ever compress itself into such a dense state that a cataclysmic nuclear fusion based explosion occurs.

Heavy weight stars always lose their battle with gravity. With the crushing weight of the stars outer layers bearing down on its core the fusion reactions progress from Hydrogen to Helium to Carbon to other heavier elements. The star continues to cook lighter nuclei into progressively heavier elements, but each nuclear reaction runs its course faster. The transformation from Carbon to Oxygen takes 600 years, from oxygen to silicon 6 months, from silicon to iron one day. Once the star's core turns to solid iron it's all over - in less than a second the star will explode.

Small stars, like our sun, age slowly into dwarfs. A dwarf star will come to a type "1a" supernova only if it is able to steal fuel from a companion star.
Massive Stars, which start at 8 times the mass of our sun, live fast and ultimately suffer a core collapse supernova producing a dense neutron star or a black hole.

Unfortunately, the destiny for our humble "little" sun is to progress to a red giant, shed its outer layers then collapse to a white dwarf star, which will eventually fade away - not with a bang, but a whimper!

Answer 4

For a star to go supernova, it has to have a minimum mass several times that of the suns--in order to have an intense enough gravity field to force the chain of fusion reactions at the end of its life cycle These fusion reactions create heavier and heavier elements until they reach iron. Iron, though, can't keep the process going--the cycle stops and the star implodes--creating a fantastic pressure and an runaway fusion reaction at even higher levels of energy--causing the supernova explosion.

But for the star to do this--it has to have enough mass to trigger those fusion reactions that produce the heavier elements. And the sun doesn't have enough mass.

Answer 5

Not enough mass. It would need at least 1.5 times more mass than it has to end up as a supernova.

Answer 6

Our sun has many billions of years of fuel left to burn... once it exhausts those elements in the central core, it will expand and engulf the inner solar system and then it will spew out exhaust that will expand further which will Nova.

Our sun is an average sized star. See this image to compare here: http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

Then, you will see the sun doesn't really make as much of an impact when it dies as the larger stars do.

Answer 7

Plain and simple...it is not massive enough.

Also, the flying spaghetti monster won't let it.

Answer 8

It lacks the mass to go supernova.

Doug

Answer 9

It would need to have much more mass than it does, but exactly how much is a moot question.

Answer 10

Not enough mass.