This article is one of many shorter pieces, pondering what would happen in hypothetical situations. These are inspired by an article called “Everybody Jump” by Randall Munroe.
What if the sun exploded?
We all know the sun that gives light and heat to our solar system. It allows plants to perform photosynthesis, water to precipitate, and life to thrive. But what would happen if it exploded?
First, we need to understand how a star would explode. As a star ages, it makes different layers through nuclear reactions on the inside of the star. This makes layers kind of like an onion. When these layers turn in on each other, the star explodes.
This could make a quick explosion. A lot of energy would be released and a huge shock wave would go through space at the speed of light. This shock wave would take about eight minutes and twenty seconds to get to Earth, because Earth is ninety three million miles away from the sun. The massive amounts of energy released would make the sun expand and swallow up the Earth, vaporizing it almost instantly. Moreover, if the Earth was not vaporized, there would be massive amounts of radiation, which, among other things, would cause strong magnetic pulses, causing technology to be toast because it can not take the magnetism. More than Earth getting destroyed, though, the entire solar system would be pretty messed up. Planets that did not get destroyed in the initial blast would be knocked off their orbits. Without the gravity of the sun to hold them together, they would just float through the universe.
That was all for a quick explosion, though. The sun might not explode quickly, but it will eventually run out of fuel and no longer be a star, in about 5 billion years or so. But how will it happen? Remember the core of a star? Well, when it turns on itself, it’s like a giant mosh pit of hydrogen molecules- a process called nuclear fusion- is getting released into the solar system. The sun would rapidly expand as a red giant and consume Earth. Next, it would become a nebula, with the core now filled with helium. This would create less energy than before. Its final step would be to condense into a white dwarf.
So, pretty much, if the sun goes boom, the Earth will be destroyed… But what happens if the Earth somehow survives? Let’s pretend the Earth somehow survives the sun’s explosion- what happens now? Our climate would go crazy; at first, it would get very hot, very fast, from all the radiation- so hot, in fact, that all the oceans would evaporate. We would have crazy greenhouse effects. Next, it would get very, very cold without the sun’s energy to warm us. Humans could move into underground bunkers to survive the cold for a little while, but not for long. Without the sun, the planet would just float through the universe with no gravity to hold them together. Earth could float into a black hole, run into another planet, or be destroyed some other way.
To summarize: If the sun explodes or just goes poof, it would be very bad for us. On the other hand, though, it is one way to get out of a standardized test!
Sources:
If the Sun Exploded, What Would Happen to Our Planet?
NASA’s Chandra Reveals Star’s Inner Conflict Before Explosion
