# Is there any chance of the sun just exploding?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-chance-of-the-sun-just-exploding/367095>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 2, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-chance-of-the-sun-just-exploding/367095 "2006-08-02T23:09:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-chance-of-the-sun-just-exploding/367095/41 "2006-08-04T00:39:27Z")

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[QUOTE=Anne Neville]  
The [How to Destroy the Earth page](http://qntm.org/destroy#5) says it might work with Mercury (number 3 under this heading), if you could somehow teleport it directly into the Sun’s core without it being vaporized by the outer layers of the Sun first.  
[/QUOTE]

By the way, just stopping Mercury in its orbit so it falls into the Sun won’t cut it. It would be vaporized long before it got to the Sun’s core where it could do any good.

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**Author:** ![harrylentil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/53a042/32.png) [@harrylentil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harrylentil)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-chance-of-the-sun-just-exploding/367095/42 "2006-08-04T01:55:01Z")

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[QUOTE=tofergregg]  
To emphasize **silenus** ’ point, saying that the sun “burns” is misleading, because our normal use of the word “burn” is in the chemical sense (e.g., wood on fire), whereas the Sun converts hydrogen into helium by nuclear fusion, which is a physical process and is completely different than chemical burning.

-Tofer  
[/QUOTE]

…implying that chemistry is not physical. I think you said fusion is ‘a physical process’ because you associate it with physics and physicists. Interesting error.

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**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-chance-of-the-sun-just-exploding/367095/43 "2006-08-04T02:56:53Z")

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[QUOTE=Anne Neville]  
ISTR reading somewhere that someone did a study and calculated, even in the collision of the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way (which is going to happen, eventually) that fewer than 10 collisions between stars would happen. With 10[sup]11[/sup] stars in the galaxy, that means odds of 1 in 10 billion that a stellar collision would happen **while two galaxies were colliding**.  
[/QUOTE]

Actually, the whole point of the article was that stellar collisions may be more common than was previously thought.

From the _Scientific American_ article:

> [@](#):
>
> When two stars smash into each other, it can be a very pretty sight (as long as you’re not too close by). These occurrences were once considered impossible, but they have turned out to be common in certain galactic neighborhoods.

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**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-chance-of-the-sun-just-exploding/367095/44 "2006-08-04T15:54:57Z")

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[QUOTE=robby]  
Actually, the whole point of the article was that stellar collisions may be more common than was previously thought.  
[/QUOTE]

That wasn’t the article I was referring to (I hadn’t seen that one until this thread happened). I was referring to some article I vaguely remember reading back in my grad-school days.

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