239: What will happen when the sun explodes?
Oct 1, 2026 · 10 min · 8 segments
A question from Laura, age 12. Professor Catherine Neish answers. For more on Prof. Neish, listen to episode…
Oct 1, 2026 · 10 min · 8 segments
A question from Laura, age 12. Professor Catherine Neish answers. For more on Prof. Neish, listen to episode…
Catherine NeishGuest
Carrie NugentHost
Some kids who are listening might wonder how can we know what's gonna happen to a star over billions of years?
It's really great that the universe has a lot of stars, [laughs] and we don't just have to study our own one sun.
So we can look at how stars develop over time just by monitoring all the stars in our galaxy and in the universe.
Our star is four and a half billion years old and weighs a certain amount, but there are plenty of other stars that are younger and older and weigh lots of different masses, and we can track them all and see how they develop over time, and that gives us a better idea of what our solar system was like in the past and will be in the future.
Some kids who are listening might wonder how can we know what's gonna happen to a star over billions of years?
It's really great that the universe has a lot of stars, [laughs] and we don't just have to study our own one sun.
So we can look at how stars develop over time just by monitoring all the stars in our galaxy and in the universe.
Our star is four and a half billion years old and weighs a certain amount, but there are plenty of other stars that are younger and older and weigh lots of different masses, and we can track them all and see how they develop over time, and that gives us a better idea of what our solar system was like in the past and will be in the future.
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