the sun rises at its appropriate time and sets every day all energy for life to exist on Earth is obtained from the sun the sun has been considered a deity since ages in many cultures we've become so used to the sun rising and setting daily that we probably don't spare a thought about what will happen of our sun in the future our sun has existed for 4.5 billion ion years now but will it remain like this forever is there a possibility that our son will someday die does our son have what it takes to be
a supernova but what exactly is a supernova welcome to lab 360 it's time to explore a supernova simply put is an extremely bright super powerful explosion of a star it's the biggest blast humans can ever see there are two ways a supernova can occur it can occur during the last stages of a Dying massive Star by Massive we mean a star which weighs at least 10 power 31 kg that is one with 31 zeros the massive star suddenly implodes during its last stages unable to hold against gravity resulting in a supernova the second way in
which a supernova can occur is when a white dwarf accumulates enough Mass from its binary companion the end result of a supernova explosion is either a neutron star or a black hole both exotic objects a supernova can be as bright as an entire galaxy at its peak and will fade over months indeed a supernova is a rare and fantastic phenomenon data suggests that Supernova occur in a galaxy Thrice in a century making them an extremely rare phenomenon if a supernova occurs anywhere in our vast Milky Way It Is expected to be visible via modern telescopes
unless blocked by space dust material many times the mass of the Sun is expelled at speed several per of the speed of light in a supernova explosion this sends a shock wave in the surrounding Interstellar medium sweeping up an expanding shell of gas this shock wave when it hits clouds of hydrogen gas can trigger the formation of new stars in fact that is how our sun formed with a nearby Supernova our son was born but will the sun itself die with a supernova blast let's first get to know a little more about our sun our
sun is a very ordinary star among 100 billion others dotting our Milky Way It Is a massive ball of ionized gases or plasma with 3/4 of its mass made of hydrogen gas the sun is 8 light minutes away from the earth meaning light from the sun takes 8 minutes 19 seconds to reach us the sun is massive with a diameter of 86 4,600 Mi 109 Earths could line up inside the Sun's diameter did you know that the sun is so huge that it makes up 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system The Sun
Also rotates on its axis just like the Earth's 24-hour rotation as the sun is so massive and made entirely of gas its equator rotates faster than the poles isn't that amazing its equatorial region takes about 25 days to complete one rotation while the polar regions rotate more slowly taking 35 days to complete one rotation the temperature of the surface of the Sun is around 5,000 Kelvin but now let's come to the main factor which decides whether a star can end its life by exploding in a supernova as mentioned before only Stars having a mass of
at least 10 power 31 kg can explode in a supernova now the Sun's mass is 2 into 10 power 30 kg which is 5 times lesser than that needed for a Star to die as a supernova essentially what it means is that only stars with a mass five times that of our son can die as a supernova but then how will our son die though not a supernova the death of our star is going to be no less fascinating the life cycle of a star like our sun is very fascinating currently our sun is around
4.5 billion years old after our sun is around 10 billion years old and has used up most of its fuel which is hydrogen it will balloon into a red giant consuming Mercury but as it expands it will also get cooler for about 1 billion years it will continue to exist in this red giant phase at this point the blown up red Giant's core will not remain hot enough to oppose gravity and it will give in gravity its core will collapse leading to an explosion of the outer layers our sun at this point will engulf all
planets till Earth the Sun won't be very stable at this point and will continue to blow off its outer layers the hot core remaining after this stage is what we call a white dwarf a white dwarf is the size of the Earth but weighs as much as the sun making it a super dense super hot object with immense gravity subra Manion Shandra sear an indian-american physicist gave an upper limit on the mass of white dwarves he worked out that a white dwarf which weighs more than 1.44 times the mass of the sun won't be able
to hold against gravity and will explode as a supernova Shandra seikar after whom the famous Chandra x-ray Observatory is also named won a Nobel Prize for his work on Stellar Evolution so to sum up no our son can never become a supernova because it doesn't have enough Mass consequently the end stage of our sun can never be a black hole as black holes form only as a result of a supernova explosion the end stage of our sun is rather going to be another interesting object which is a white dwarf isn't that remarkable share your thoughts
in the comments section below and be sure to subscribe to lab 360 for the latest revelations in space exploration hit the Bell icon to stay updated and let's continue to explore together [Music]
