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Last Post 3/22/2013 10:30 AM by  Yan Li
Facts about sun
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3/22/2013 8:24 AM

    Hello, I am dylan. I was wondering if the sun will ever explode from its extreme heat?


    Hazel Bain



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    Posts:18
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    3/22/2013 10:20 AM
    Hi Dylan, Our Sun won't explode exactly. But in about 5 billion years our Sun will turn into a red giant. When this happens it will expand out possibly as far as the orbit of the Earth, swallowing up Mercury and Venus. I wrote a bit about what happens when stars get old in this post here: http://www.solarweek.org/CS/t/1769.aspx Although the Sun won't explode. There are smaller explosions occurring often on the Sun, called solar flares. The Sun has a magnetic field and when it gets too twisted this can cause a solar flare. You can think of it like twisted a rubber band. Once it gets really twisted it snaps. During a solar flare a HUGE amount of energy is released. For example, the energy in one Milky Way bar is 260 kcal. The energy released in a solar flare is the equivalent to the energy in roughly 10 billion billion Mars bars! Hazel

    Yan Li



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    3/22/2013 10:30 AM

    Hi,I guess the answer is no. But the Sun will eventually burn out. This page has a good description of the process.

    http://www.frontiernet.net/~docbob/sun.htm


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