Bridge to learning:

Not only is this a common misconception, but some students may confuse the red giant stage of the Sun with the Sun “blowing up”, because the Sun’s red giant phase is often described as “engulfing the Earth.”

Explain that for solitary main sequence stars, mass alone controls whether or not they will explode as a Type IIp supernova. Main sequence stars with less than eight solar masses will not form a supernova.

What about the Sun exploding once it becomes a white dwarf?

A Type Ia supernova can happen only when a white dwarf is a member of a binary star system, and since the Sun does not have a binary star partner, it will never explode as a Type Ia supernova.

There are two different mechanisms. White dwarfs that accumulate too much material from their partner star heat up so much that they begin to fuse carbon, creating a thermal runaway fusion reaction which leads to a Type Ia supernova. Another possible scenario is the merger of two white dwarfs in a binary system.

Massive stars undergo core collapse when they reach a point where fusion is unable to overcome gravitational force. The collapse of the core generates a shock wave that works it way outward in a matter of hours and creates a violent explosion of the outer layers of the star. This investigation uses Type IIp supernovae to as examples of core collapse supernovae, but other types of supernovae may also be formed by this process. Type Ia is the only class of supernovae not caused by core collapse.

Other kinds of supernovae are classified based on slight variations in the shapes of their light curves, and differences in which elements are observed in their spectrum.

Some very energetic supernovae are called hypernovae.

Probably not. The average “safe distance” from a supernova is estimated to be 160 light years away, and at present there are no known stars within that distance that could one day form a supernova.