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At the end of its relatively short life as a giant star, when much of the hydrogen and helium have been fused into heavier elements, a new stage of fusion will begin. As the core of the star becomes more and more dense and hotter and hotter, heavier and heavier elements will fuse to generate a little more energy to keep the star going.

But at some point, the star gets hot enough and dense enough to fuse lighter elements into iron, and elements even more massive. Fusion GENERATES energy, generally, until you get to iron. Fusing anything heavier than iron doesn't generate energy; it REQUIRES energy. So when the star's core gets dense enough and hot enough to fuse elements heavier than iron, the star isn't releasing any more energy - the star's heavy fusion reaction is now SUCKING THE ENERGY AND LIFE RIGHT OUT OF THE CENTER OF THE STAR!So instead of trying to expand, the core of the star begins to CONTRACT - as the outer layers of the star are still creating energy, and transferring the hot middle layers into the cooler core layers. It becomes a reverse explosion - an IMPLOSION. The middle layers of the star explode in two directions - inward toward the core, and outward. The intensity of the explosion continues to fuse, only this continues to suck energy OUT of the star. This creates gold, lead, silver, platinum, nickel, Mercury, and all the other elements heavier than iron - and the outer explosion blasts the star to bits! We know that the Earth has nickel and molybdenum and gold; those elements can ONLY been created in the middle layers of a supernova. WE - are made of these elements! WE CAME FROM SUPERNOVAS!

The inner core, squeezed by the implosion, may become a neutron star or pulsar, or if the mass and energy are great enough, it may be crushed down to nothingness, so that the matter is crushed out of the universe entirely - as a black hole.

The elements ejected into space will condense as gas, or as solids eventually, and will float around the galaxy and eventually form stellar nebulas. Something then nudges these nebulas, and they sometimes then collapse into new stars, possibly with their own planetary systems. What "nudges" a nebula? About the only thing powerful enough would be the shock wave of ANOTHER supernova. A supernova created our elements and blasted them into space, and far later, ANOTHER supernova nudged our Sun and planets to form.

There may be one MORE supernova in the mix. If a supernova about 5 million years ago had exploded not too near, but not too far away, it might have triggered mutations in the DNA of our monkey-like ancestors - and it's just barely possible that we human beings have been the fortunate heirs of such an enormous chain of explosions.

Our star will not go supernova; it's too small. Our Sun will grow old as a red giant, and then fade into obscurity as a white dwarf many billions of years from now.

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Q: What is a supernova. Why are they important in terms of life as you know it. Will your sun ever have a supernova explosion when it dies in about 5 billion years?
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