heard about super novas etc on TV last night.
2007-09-19 06:50:23 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Approximately 5 billion years.
However, the Sun is not massive enough to go supernova.
It will bloat out to become a red giant and, eventually, finish its "golden years" as a white dwarf (then brown dwarf). More billions of years in its future.
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_cycle
and click on the small figure called Life cycle of the sun
(or go directly here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sun_Life.png )
2007-09-19 07:13:45 · answer #1 · answered by Raymond 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Many of you above got the Hydrogen sequence correctly, but forgot that Helium is a fuel as well.
The Hydrogen will run out in about 4 or 5 billion years. The the sun will contract, begin using HELIUM, expand and burn happily for another 2 billion years or so as a Red Giant, before a final stage of contraction and expansion, also using helium, lasting for about another 100 million years. Then nuclear reactions will stop and it will remain a white dwarf for perhaps ten billion years or more gradually cooling until it reaches black dwarf stage.
So the answer is somewhere about 6 to 7 BY.
2007-09-19 15:35:46 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Considering that it has already been burning for about 1 billion years, I really wouldn't worry about it. It's not going to either fade, expand or blow up for quite a few billion years more.
2007-09-19 14:30:32 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Five billion years, like the first guy said.
I don't think the sun is supposed to be massive enough to end up as a supernova.
This guy here runs down how it's supposed to go:
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Lectures/vistas97.html
2007-09-19 14:01:22 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
A few billion years. Once the hydrogen is exhausted, the carbon cycle takes over for some time and then the sun dies.
2007-09-19 14:10:46 · answer #5 · answered by Swamy 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
About Five billion years
2007-09-19 13:58:17 · answer #6 · answered by jon_mac_usa_007 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
like everyone said like five billion years or something, but msybe we'll find some way to save the sun or already colonize other planets by then and have us outta there before that happens...
i got all scifi on ya....lol
2007-09-19 14:16:17 · answer #7 · answered by HelpTheConfused 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A LOOONG TIME
coinsider this .........It has already been Burning for around 900 Million years +!
2007-09-19 13:56:59 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
five billion years.
2007-09-19 13:54:07 · answer #9 · answered by johnandeileen2000 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
quite a while, I wouldn't worry about it =D
2007-09-19 14:00:58 · answer #10 · answered by WillsBradford 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋