• Question: Why do stars explode?

    Asked by smithmoorebell to Ben, Clare, Ezzy, Mario, Sam on 13 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by diggle007.
    • Photo: Mario Campanelli

      Mario Campanelli answered on 12 Mar 2012:


      they do actually implode first, for having burnt all their fuel, than explode because of too much pressure

    • Photo: Elizabeth Pearson

      Elizabeth Pearson answered on 13 Mar 2012:


      At the end of a stars life you end up with a load of gas around a dense iron core. with no fuel to burn there’s not enough heat to fight against gravity and all the gas starts rushing in, slams into the iron core and bounces off in a super nova. Usually you’re just left with a giant cloud of elements and gases around an iron core, but sometimes the mass is enough to keep collapsing into a black hole.

      I did an explanation for something called to famelab you can look at here. There’s a lot of shouting and running around.

    • Photo: Clare Burrage

      Clare Burrage answered on 17 Mar 2012:


      There are two forces fighting for control of the star, one is gravity that wants to pull everything into the center and the other is the pressure that comes from the fact that the star is very hot because of the nuclear reactions that are happening in the core of the star.
      While a star is burning normally it has found a balance between these two forces, but when the star runs out of fuel the star cools down and gravity wins, and everything in the star rushes towards the center. If this happens too quickly everything bounces off the center of the star and rushes out again causing an explosion called a supernova.

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