Sigh..
Okay - repeating what has been said several times before - and apparently having to correct more of the respondents here than one might normally expect.
Or Sun isn't going to explode. Neither Super-nova nor even a basic nova. It will expand into a Red Giant, shed several layers of outer-most gas, and contract into a small yellow dwarf - and cool off over the next several billion years.
*Scientists* know this for much the same reason that explosives experts can confidently tell you that a firecracker isn't going to be an atomic bomb and blow up an entire city. Even a large firecracker won't do more than blow off some fool's fingers, blind them, burn them, cause some nasty permanent scarring... all tragic to the person - but not an atomic bomb.
It is too small - - and the physics just are not right.
The Sun would need to be 5 times as massive as it currently is to become a nova, exploding at the end of the main portion of its life. It needs to be almost 20 times its current mass to become a super-nova.
**We** can know this by reading the science involved - by *learning* what the physics of stars, novas and supernovas is. By learning the mathematics needed.
Or by actually listening to the scientists that have done this - and have argued it out quite vigorously in the mathematics and physics journals.
Or you can wander about and be scared of boogie-men, happily frightening yourself over the least likely threats, while managing to ignore threats that are much more real... such as the lack of scientific, mathematical and verbal literacy in our country.
Sure... that's probably a whole lot simpler...
Okay - repeating what has been said several times before - and apparently having to correct more of the respondents here than one might normally expect.
Or Sun isn't going to explode. Neither Super-nova nor even a basic nova. It will expand into a Red Giant, shed several layers of outer-most gas, and contract into a small yellow dwarf - and cool off over the next several billion years.
*Scientists* know this for much the same reason that explosives experts can confidently tell you that a firecracker isn't going to be an atomic bomb and blow up an entire city. Even a large firecracker won't do more than blow off some fool's fingers, blind them, burn them, cause some nasty permanent scarring... all tragic to the person - but not an atomic bomb.
It is too small - - and the physics just are not right.
The Sun would need to be 5 times as massive as it currently is to become a nova, exploding at the end of the main portion of its life. It needs to be almost 20 times its current mass to become a super-nova.
**We** can know this by reading the science involved - by *learning* what the physics of stars, novas and supernovas is. By learning the mathematics needed.
Or by actually listening to the scientists that have done this - and have argued it out quite vigorously in the mathematics and physics journals.
Or you can wander about and be scared of boogie-men, happily frightening yourself over the least likely threats, while managing to ignore threats that are much more real... such as the lack of scientific, mathematical and verbal literacy in our country.
Sure... that's probably a whole lot simpler...
-
Supernovae are among the astronomical phenomena we understand reasonably well. In particular, we know that to become a supernova, a star has to have a mass of a least 1.4 times that of the sun. The reason, in turn, that we know that is that we can calculate it from some well-known physical constants, and the properties of subatomic particles, all of which are well-known.
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