Th killing of the sun

[goldenstar945612]

If mercury core is made out of ironj right.
then if it would ever go into the sun wouldn't the sun die since iron kills it.

 

[origin]

If mercury core is made out of ironj right.
then if it would ever go into the sun wouldn't the sun die since iron kills it.

Nah, mercury is such a small object it wouldn't have much affect on the sun.

However more importantly iron does not 'kill' a star. I think what you are thinking is that if a star is very old and has fused most of the lighter elelments so that it is only fusing elements that result in iron then the sun will go nova. This is becasue when iron is fused it does not produce excess energy, so the outward pressure decreases and the star collapses. So it is not the exsistence of iron, it is the fusing of lighter element into iron that results in the 'death' of a star.

 

[nimbus]

 

[CalliArcale]

If mercury core is made out of ironj right.
then if it would ever go into the sun wouldn't the sun die since iron kills it.

Nah, mercury is such a small object it wouldn't have much affect on the sun.

However more importantly iron does not 'kill' a star. I think what you are thinking is that if a star is very old and has fused most of the lighter elelments so that it is only fusing elements that result in iron then the sun will go nova. This is becasue when iron is fused it does not produce excess energy, so the outward pressure decreases and the star collapses. So it is not the exsistence of iron, it is the fusing of lighter element into iron that results in the 'death' of a star.

Or to put it another way, it's not so much the iron that does a star in so much as the fact that it's run out of elements that it can fuse. Our own sun will never reach the iron stage; it's much too small. It will expire after it has first exhausted all the hydrogen, and then all of the helium. It will not have enough mass to fuse heavier elements, and so it will stop there and collapse into a white dwarf.

A bigger star would get to fuse heavier elements. Iron is an upper limit because, as origin said, you can't get more energy out of fusing iron than you put into it. Which means that even if the star is massive enough to fuse iron, when it tries to there is no more outward pressure to hold back the outer layers and the star collapses into either a neutron star or a black hole, depending on the mass of the remnant. I've heard members here who are well-versed in astrophysics describe what happens next, and how much heavier elements can get fused during this rapid and extremely violent collapse. I'll get it wrong if I try to repeat it, but it's pretty awesome.

 

[origin]

Or to put it another way, it's not so much the iron that does a star in so much as the fact that it's run out of elements that it can fuse. Our own sun will never reach the iron stage; it's much too small. It will expire after it has first exhausted all the hydrogen, and then all of the helium. It will not have enough mass to fuse heavier elements, and so it will stop there and collapse into a white dwarf.

Thanks for clarifying.