• Question: Could we potentially contain all the energy from the sun's supernova by the time it happens in order to preserve our world?

    Asked by anon-214650 to Helen, Farah, Dave, Cheryl, Bastian, Alun on 12 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Dave Underhill

      Dave Underhill answered on 12 Jun 2019:


      Our sun is too small to go supernova – it will turn into a red giant in about 5 billion years, but it is highly unlikely life will survive passed about another 600 million years because of a change in the atmosphere, and almost certainly not passed a billion years due to rising temperatures. Even if we could found a colony in another solar system I can’t see how we could develop the technology needed to harness a super nova, but this really isn’t my field so others might know things I don’t?

    • Photo: Cheryl Williams

      Cheryl Williams answered on 13 Jun 2019:


      Not my area of science, sorry 🙂

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