“What would happen when the sun explodes, how would it affect the surroundings and how can we prevent the explosion from happening?”

In order to be able to prevent the sun from exploding, we must find out why stars explode.

The reason why stars explode is due to them running out of fuel. This causes the unbalance of the force of heat pressure pushing outwards and the gravity pushing inwards toward the core of the star. When the pressure from the core of the star is not able to sustain gravitational force, it will cause a star to explode.

Red Giants

After the star runs out of its primary supply of hydrogen fuel it will turn into a red giant. The star then expands and the temperature drops, the star takes on a reddish color, hence the name. The temperature of the star can drop to between 3,100 and 6,700 degrees Fahrenheit and the diameter of the star can expand from 10 to 1,000 times. When stars turn into red giants there is no fuel that keeps the star producing energy and the core of the star contracts. Most red giants exit the stage of being a red giant and cause a supernova. The star can only create a supernova if the star is big enough, which the sun is not.

The End Of The Sun’s Life: What Would Happen?

The end of the sun’s life will occur when the sun will run out of hydrogen. The core of the star pushing against gravity allows the star not to collapse when the hydrogen supply runs out, gravity takes over. However, as I previously mentioned, the sun is not a big enough star to cause a supernova. The death of the sun will be much slower. The sun will swell into a red giant. When this happens the sun will run out of hydrogen and begin fusing heavier elements. Temperature in the core will continue to rise as the sun begins swallowing the closest planets, possibly including the earth. The planets consumed by the sun will then quickly evaporate. The expansion of the sun during the final phase would result in solar winds capable of stripping the earth of its magnetic field, removing our atmosphere and our protection from dangerous solar particles and the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. The final stages of the red giant phase would see the sun shooting materials from its outer layers and since the Earth would have no atmosphere, it will be bombarded with intense radiation from the dying sun without any protection, making the surface of the planet entirely inhospitable. All the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun and the death of the sun would throw off other planets that orbit around it. The orbits will likely expand and planets will be more distanced from the sun. If the earth were to be a surviving planet, like all other planets in our solar system, without a central star around which to orbit, Earth and all the other planets in our solar system would become free planets, drifting through space without anything anchoring them. 

How do we prevent the death of the sun or prolong the sun’s life?

To prolong the sun’s life would mean to stop the sun’s hydrogen supply from running out. To do this we would need to find a way to channel the hydrogen from the outer layers into the center of the sun because the reason stars explode is because they run out of hydrogen fuel and if we can prevent that from happening, the sun’s life will be prolonged.

My Resources

Gale in Context: Science, www.gale.com/c/in-context-science. Accessed 14 May 2025.

Roberts, Joe. “What Would Happen If the Sun Suddenly Exploded?” Sciencing, Sciencing, 16 Mar. 2025, www.sciencing.com/1810621/what-would-happen-if-sun-exploded/.

Admin. “What Makes Stars Explode? (Explained!).” Scope The Galaxy, scopethegalaxy.com/what-makes-stars-explode/. Accessed 19 May 2025.