How long will it take the sun to run out of fuel?

Answer 1

How long will the sun last?

I think it is a bit more than 5 billion years. This figure is generally quoted and refers to the amount of time the sun will remain in its current stable form. After this the sun will continue to burn but in a much different form. It will change into a red giant with a radius out past the orbit of the Earth. Eventually the sun will run out of fuel and become a white dwarf.

Addition: Just looked up some texts and the time to reach this stage is about another 3-5 billion years.

So in summary.
The sun will burn in its existing stable state for about another 5 billion yrs.
However, the time it takes for the sun to run out of fuel and become a white dwarf will be 8-10 billions years from the present day.

Answer 2

We believe that the sun gets its energy from the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core. According to the theory, the sun has enough nuclear fuel to power itself for about 10 billion years. If the sun is 4.5 billion years old, then it has exhausted about half of its potential lifetime. During those 4.5 billion years the sun would not have remained static—the sun must have gradually changed. The conversion of hydrogen into helium in the solar core would have altered the core’s composition, which would have resulted in the sun’s core slowly shrinking and increasing in temperature. This would have increased the nuclear fusion rate and hence brightened the sun. Calculation shows that the sun ought to be about 40 percent brighter today than when it allegedly formed 4.5 billion years ago and that the sun ought to be 30 percent brighter today than when life supposedly appeared on the earth 3.5 billion years ago. With all the concern today with global warming that some fear will happen if we increase the retention of solar energy only slightly, one must wonder what effect that gradual solar warming would have had. If there had been no change in the terrestrial atmosphere over billions of years, there would have been a 16–18 C increase in the average earth temperature. Since the current average earth temperature is about 15 C, the early earth ought to have had an average temperature below freezing. No one believes that this is the case. Most assume that the average terrestrial temperature has not changed much, if at all, during earth history.

How do we explain this early faint sun paradox? Evolutionists, who believe that the earth and sun are billions of years old, must assume that the atmosphere of the early earth had much more greenhouse gases than our current atmosphere. As the sun gradually brightened, the earth’s atmosphere gradually evolved so that it had less greenhouse gases to counter the increase in the sun’s luminosity. How two completely unrelated processes could have evolved in exactly compensating ways for billions of years is amazing. I find it more reasonable to assume that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago with pretty much the atmospheric composition that it now has and that the sun has not brightened appreciably since its formation a few thousand years ago.

Answer 3

I saw a show on Discovery Science the other night that suggests that the 4 million year mark could be totally wrong, and that it actually only has half that amount. They used a method that detects the chemical composition of the sun by 'catching' trace elements shot from the sun's solar winds. These elements are not only ones found on Earth, but also elements not before seen, things that make up other planets.

They examined the chemicals captured, and after testing, they said that the actual age of the sun was much older than before thought, and therefore the remaining life of the sun was much less.

Still way way longer than humans. Probably.

Answer 4

The sun has been burning for nearly 4 billion years and will keep burning in approximately 5 billion years.

Answer 5

I dont think the sun will ever run out of fuel.

Answer 6

Only a few more hours, then they will fuel it up again and light it early in the morning.


You already had enough sensible answers.

Answer 7

Well the sun is supposed to be through have its life span right now. I think it has another 5 billion year left.

Answer 8

I watched a discovery show on that and it said 20 million or billion years from now.

Answer 9

5 billion years according to scientists.

Answer 10

Astronomers and physicists say another 5 billion years or so, give or take a year for uncertainty.