<p>I'm not an astronomer, just an enthusiast, but I believe the only way that the sun could become a black hole is if when the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy collide, if our star combines with another star and the mass of the two is great enough to create a black hole then it's possible; however, from what I've read, despite the enormous size of galaxies and the absurd number of stars within them, because the planets and stars (especially in the outer edges of the galaxy) are so far away that collisions are actually very unlikely.</p>

<p>Some sources of information (none talk about the black hole scenario though):
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEI8WBJkKk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEI8WBJkKk</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uiv6tKtoKg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uiv6tKtoKg</a>
<a href="http://www.space.com/15947-milky-andromeda-galaxies-collision-simulated-video.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.space.com/15947-milky-andromeda-galaxies-collision-simulated-video.html</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-28T12:54:07.083Z
A large part of this answer has nothing to do with the question, could you please clean it up and add relevant detail.
Donald.McLean
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-28T19:52:54.223Z
The simple answer is no, it's never going to happen. I have suggested a possible scenario in which our star could become a black hole, or at least a contributing part of it. I don't understand what details are irrelevant to the question. I have edited the answer to include a few sources of information about the collision but there are no details for the hypothetical black hole scenario as it is my own (though obviously not likely unique) creative solution that hadn't yet been proposed in this thread.
GingerBeard
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-27T10:24:38.503Z
2015-03-28T19:36:49.860Z
2015-03-28T19:36:49.860Z
GingerBeard
<p>If the size of the black hole is the same as the size of the Sun, then the planets of our Solar system will maintain their orbital path, which will not have a significant effect on them. Even though the Earth will be present in its place, life on it will be destroyed because without the sun's light all the creatures can't survive.</p>
<p>However, there is absolutely no possibility of this happening. Our Sun is too small to become a black hole. For a star to become a black hole, it must be at least ten times the mass of our Sun.</p>
<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/1tTNv.png" alt="Stars around the mass as the Sun... Eventually become white dwarfs. Stars with 4-8 times the mass of the Sun... Eventually become neutron stars. Stars with more than 8 times the mass of the Sun... Eventually become black holes." /></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-14T07:03:00.693Z
The diagram contains incorrect information. Stars of 4-8 solar masses will not end up as neutron stars and most work suggests stars of at least 20 solar masses are required to produce black holes.
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-14T11:55:16.997Z
@Rob Jeffries agreed. Numerous radio galaxies and AGN have masses about $10^8 M\odot$, so I don't understand how the answer or the quoted reference therein comes to this conclusion.
lordparthurnaax
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-26T15:41:36.003Z
Why is the neutron star depicted as black?
user random numbers
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-08-12T23:08:33.537Z
@lordparthurnaax Why are radio galaxies & AGN relevant to this answer, or this question?
PM 2Ring
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-14T05:29:39.720Z
2023-08-12T10:36:28.980Z
2023-08-12T10:36:28.980Z
Abhijeet Sharma
<h2>No, the sun won't ever become a black hole.</h2>
<p>The choice between the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution#Stellar_remnants" rel="noreferrer">three fates of stars</a> (white dwarf, neutron star, black hole) is entirely determined by the star's mass.</p>
<p>A star on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence" rel="noreferrer">main sequence</a> (like most stars, including our sun) is constantly in a balance between the inward pressure of gravity and the outward pressure of the energy generated by the hydrogen fusion that makes it &quot;burn&quot;.<sup><strong>1</strong></sup>  This balance stays relatively stable until the star runs out of whatever its current fuel is - at that point, it stops burning, which means there's no longer outward pressure, which means it starts collapsing.  Depending on how much mass there is, it might get hot enough as it collapses to start fusing helium together. (If it's <em>really</em> massive, it might continue on to burn carbon, neon, oxygen, silicon, and finally iron, which <em>can't</em> be usefully fused.)</p>
<p>Regardless of what its final fuel is, eventually the star will reach a point where the collapse from gravity is insufficient to start burning the next fuel in line.  This is when the star &quot;dies&quot;.</p>
<h3>White dwarfs</h3>
<p>If the star's remains<sup><strong>2</strong></sup> mass less than 1.44 solar masses (the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit" rel="noreferrer">Chandrasekhar limit</a><sup><strong>3</strong></sup>), eventually gravity will collapse the star to the point where each atom is pushed right up against the next.  They can't collapse further, because the electrons can't overlap.  While white dwarfs <em>do</em> shed light, they do so because they are extremely hot and slowly cooling off, not because they're generating new energy.  Theoretically, a white dwarf will eventually dim until it becomes a black dwarf, although the universe isn't old enough for this to have happened yet.</p>
<h3>Neutron stars</h3>
<p>If the collapsing star is above the Chandraskhar limit, gravity is so strong that it can overcome the &quot;electrons can't overlap&quot; restriction.  At that point, all the electrons in the star will be pushed into combining with protons to form neutrons.  Eventually, the entire star will composed primarily of neutrons pushed right up next to each other.  The neutrons can't be pushed into occupying the same space, so the star eventually settles into being a single ball of pure neutrons.</p>
<h3>Black holes</h3>
<p>Black holes are the step beyond neutron stars, although they're worth discussing in a bit more detail.  Everything, in theory, has a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius" rel="noreferrer">Schwarzschild radius</a>.  That's the radius where a ball of that mass would be so dense that light can't escape.  For example, the Schwarzschild radius for Earth is about 9mm.  However, for all masses smaller than somewhere between 2-3 times the mass of the sun, it's impossible to squeeze the matter small enough to get it inside that radius.  Even a neutron star isn't massive enough.</p>
<p>But a star that becomes a black hole is.  We don't actually know what happens to a star once it's become a black hole - the edges of the &quot;hole&quot; itself is simply the Schwarzschild radius - the point light can't escape.  From outside, it doesn't matter whether the matter collapsed to the point that the neutrons started overlapping, whether it stopped just inside the radius, or whether it continued collapsing until it broke all known physical laws.  The edges are still the same, because they're just a cutoff based on the escape velocity.</p>
<hr />
<p><sup><strong>1</strong></sup>  I'm ignoring the red giant phase here, since it's just a delay in the &quot;run out of fuel&quot; step.  Basically, the core is helium &quot;ash&quot;, while the hydrogen fusion process takes place further and further out.  Once that runs out, you get a nova and the collapse continues.</p>
<p><sup><strong>2</strong></sup> Likewise, I'm ignoring the mass that stars shed in their various nova phases.  All given masses are based on the remnants left behind.</p>
<p><sup><strong>3</strong></sup> <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/105468/Chandrasekhar-limit" rel="noreferrer">Every</a> <a href="http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/whdwar.html#c5" rel="noreferrer">source</a> <a href="http://www.fisica.edu.uy/%7Esbruzzone/FlexPaper_1.4.2_flash/prueba.pdf" rel="noreferrer">I've</a> <a href="http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node88.html" rel="noreferrer">found</a> <a href="http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/ChandrasekharLimit.html" rel="noreferrer">for</a> Chandrasekhar mass, except Wikipedia, gives 1.44 or 1.4 solar masses (which are compatible).  Wikipedia gives 1.39, and gives at least <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0702351v1" rel="noreferrer">one source</a> to back that number.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-05T20:54:08.113Z
@HDE226868 - Good catch!  I had actually forgotten that 1.4 was the post-collapse mass, not the original weight.  I've updated to make that clearer.
Bobson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-06T19:24:53.113Z
On the subject of "black dwarves" - here's one: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/06/remarkable-white-dwarf-star-possibly-coldest-dimmest-ever-detected
Riot
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-27T07:34:45.987Z
Dwarves -> dwarfs (unless you're Tolkien). Neutron stars are not a big ball of neutrons and the collapse discussed takes place in the iron core of a massive star where the Chandrasehkar mass is less than 1.39 solar masses - more like 1.2.
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-27T17:07:58.307Z
@RobJeffries - You're right about the spelling, but I disagree about the rest.  If a Neutron star is *not* a mass of solid neutrons, what is it?  And do you have a source for that limit?
Bobson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-27T18:52:52.437Z
-1 Any standard textbook - e.g. "Black holes, white dwarfs and neutron stars" by Shapiro and Teukolsky. A neutron star consists of: an outer crust of degenerate electrons and neutron rich nuclei; and inner crust of electrons, free neutrons and neutron-rich nuclei; a neutron fluid consisting mainly of neutrons, but with degenerate electrons and protons; a core which is of uncertain composition but which may include mesonic condensations; muons; hyperons and/or quark phases. No argument with a statement that says "mainly neutrons".
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-27T19:04:55.457Z
The Chandrasekhar mass (e.g. as defined in  Chandrasekhar 1935 - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1935MNRAS..95..207C) is $5.728 \mu_e^{-2}\ M_{\odot}$, where $\mu_e$ is the number of mass units per electron. For iron (which forms the core of a massive star) $\mu_e =56/26$ and $M_{CH} = 1.23M_{\odot}$. This is further reduced when using the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff GR equation of hydrostatic equilibrium to about $1.2M_{\odot}$ and it may be reduced even further by the onset of neutronisation at slighty lower masses.
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-31T04:39:52.350Z
@RobJeffries - Corrected `dwarfs` and `primarily neutrons`, but I think your value for the Chandrasekhar mass is out of date.  Everything I've found indicates that the value was revised at some point.
Bobson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-31T06:11:18.720Z
@Bobson The Chandrasekhar mass for a *carbon white dwarf* is $1.39M_{\odot}$ under GR conditions. It is correct to say that a *carbon* core is stable if the mass is less than this. More massive stars do not become degenerate  when their cores are carbon. As you say, they burn through to iron. The Chandrasekhar mass for an iron core is about $1.23M_{\odot}$. The references you cite are for *carbon* white dwarfs. Sorry to be pedantic, but there is a distinction. The collapse of an iron core begins when it grows to about $1.2M_{\odot}$, through neutronisation and/or photo-disintegration.
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-09-26T23:23:33.260Z
I'm fairly confident that technically, the Sun can become a black hole if it collides with another star. It won't become a black hole on its own, but it could if other massive objects are in the picture.
Allure
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-14T09:21:22.833Z
There is at least one more possible fate: The star completely disintegrates in a pair-instability supernova (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair-instability_supernova), leaving no remnant.
TimRias
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-08-12T23:02:39.747Z
@TimRias Also, if a white dwarf has a companion it may acquire enough mass to explode as a [Type Ia supernova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_Ia_supernova), leaving no remnant.
PM 2Ring
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-05T16:29:42.233Z
2015-03-31T04:47:02.907Z
2020-06-17T09:47:40.653Z
Bobson
<p>Does every star become a black hole? Is there any probability that our sun can become a black hole? If yes then is it on its way to become a black hole? what is the current state of sun as per the black hole life cycle? What will be the effect on all the planetary objects in the solar system if the sun turns into a black hole.</p>

<p>Sorry for so many questions but i cannot miss them as these are some questions on my mind.</p>

<the-sun><solar-system><black-hole>
Can our Sun become a black hole
Strikers
# Can our Sun become a black hole

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-01-05)

Does every star become a black hole? Is there any probability that our sun can become a black hole? If yes then is it on its way to become a black hole? what is the current state of sun as per the black hole life cycle? What will be the effect on all the planetary objects in the solar system if the sun turns into a black hole.

Sorry for so many questions but i cannot miss them as these are some questions on my mind.

**Tags:** the-sun, solar-system, black-hole


---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_8 on 2015-01-05. Score: 42 | Accepted answer

## No, the sun won't ever become a black hole.

The choice between the [three fates of stars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution#Stellar_remnants) (white dwarf, neutron star, black hole) is entirely determined by the star's mass.

A star on the [main sequence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence) (like most stars, including our sun) is constantly in a balance between the inward pressure of gravity and the outward pressure of the energy generated by the hydrogen fusion that makes it "burn".**1** This balance stays relatively stable until the star runs out of whatever its current fuel is - at that point, it stops burning, which means there's no longer outward pressure, which means it starts collapsing. Depending on how much mass there is, it might get hot enough as it collapses to start fusing helium together. (If it's *really* massive, it might continue on to burn carbon, neon, oxygen, silicon, and finally iron, which *can't* be usefully fused.)

Regardless of what its final fuel is, eventually the star will reach a point where the collapse from gravity is insufficient to start burning the next fuel in line. This is when the star "dies".

### White dwarfs

If the star's remains**2** mass less than 1.44 solar masses (the [Chandrasekhar limit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit)**3**), eventually gravity will collapse the star to the point where each atom is pushed right up against the next. They can't collapse further, because the electrons can't overlap. While white dwarfs *do* shed light, they do so because they are extremely hot and slowly cooling off, not because they're generating new energy. Theoretically, a white dwarf will eventually dim until it becomes a black dwarf, although the universe isn't old enough for this to have happened yet.

### Neutron stars

If the collapsing star is above the Chandraskhar limit, gravity is so strong that it can overcome the "electrons can't overlap" restriction. At that point, all the electrons in the star will be pushed into combining with protons to form neutrons. Eventually, the entire star will composed primarily of neutrons pushed right up next to each other. The neutrons can't be pushed into occupying the same space, so the star eventually settles into being a single ball of pure neutrons.

### Black holes

Black holes are the step beyond neutron stars, although they're worth discussing in a bit more detail. Everything, in theory, has a [Schwarzschild radius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius). That's the radius where a ball of that mass would be so dense that light can't escape. For example, the Schwarzschild radius for Earth is about 9mm. However, for all masses smaller than somewhere between 2-3 times the mass of the sun, it's impossible to squeeze the matter small enough to get it inside that radius. Even a neutron star isn't massive enough.

But a star that becomes a black hole is. We don't actually know what happens to a star once it's become a black hole - the edges of the "hole" itself is simply the Schwarzschild radius - the point light can't escape. From outside, it doesn't matter whether the matter collapsed to the point that the neutrons started overlapping, whether it stopped just inside the radius, or whether it continued collapsing until it broke all known physical laws. The edges are still the same, because they're just a cutoff based on the escape velocity.

---

**1** I'm ignoring the red giant phase here, since it's just a delay in the "run out of fuel" step. Basically, the core is helium "ash", while the hydrogen fusion process takes place further and further out. Once that runs out, you get a nova and the collapse continues.

**2** Likewise, I'm ignoring the mass that stars shed in their various nova phases. All given masses are based on the remnants left behind.

**3** [Every](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/105468/Chandrasekhar-limit) [source](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/whdwar.html#c5) [I've](http://www.fisica.edu.uy/%7Esbruzzone/FlexPaper_1.4.2_flash/prueba.pdf) [found](http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node88.html) [for](http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/ChandrasekharLimit.html) Chandrasekhar mass, except Wikipedia, gives 1.44 or 1.4 solar masses (which are compatible). Wikipedia gives 1.39, and gives at least [one source](https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0702351v1) to back that number.

> **Comments:**
> **username_8**: @HDE226868 - Good catch!  I had actually forgotten that 1.4 was the post-collapse mass, not the original weight.  I've updated to make that clearer.  
> **username_9**: On the subject of "black dwarves" - here's one: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/06/remarkable-white-dwarf-star-possibly-coldest-dimmest-ever-detected  
> **username_4**: Dwarves -> dwarfs (unless you're Tolkien). Neutron stars are not a big ball of neutrons and the collapse discussed takes place in the iron core of a massive star where the Chandrasehkar mass is less than 1.39 solar masses - more like 1.2.  
> **username_8**: @RobJeffries - You're right about the spelling, but I disagree about the rest.  If a Neutron star is *not* a mass of solid neutrons, what is it?  And do you have a source for that limit?  
> **username_4**: -1 Any standard textbook - e.g. "Black holes, white dwarfs and neutron stars" by Shapiro and Teukolsky. A neutron star consists of: an outer crust of degenerate electrons and neutron rich nuclei; and inner crust of electrons, free neutrons and neutron-rich nuclei; a neutron fluid consisting mainly of neutrons, but with degenerate electrons and protons; a core which is of uncertain composition but which may include mesonic condensations; muons; hyperons and/or quark phases. No argument with a statement that says "mainly neutrons".  
> **username_4**: The Chandrasekhar mass (e.g. as defined in  Chandrasekhar 1935 - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1935MNRAS..95..207C) is $5.728 \mu_e^{-2}\ M_{\odot}$, where $\mu_e$ is the number of mass units per electron. For iron (which forms the core of a massive star) $\mu_e =56/26$ and $M_{CH} = 1.23M_{\odot}$. This is further reduced when using the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff GR equation of hydrostatic equilibrium to about $1.2M_{\odot}$ and it may be reduced even further by the onset of neutronisation at slighty lower masses.  
> **username_8**: @RobJeffries - Corrected `dwarfs` and `primarily neutrons`, but I think your value for the Chandrasekhar mass is out of date.  Everything I've found indicates that the value was revised at some point.  
> **username_4**: @username_8 The Chandrasekhar mass for a *carbon white dwarf* is $1.39M_{\odot}$ under GR conditions. It is correct to say that a *carbon* core is stable if the mass is less than this. More massive stars do not become degenerate  when their cores are carbon. As you say, they burn through to iron. The Chandrasekhar mass for an iron core is about $1.23M_{\odot}$. The references you cite are for *carbon* white dwarfs. Sorry to be pedantic, but there is a distinction. The collapse of an iron core begins when it grows to about $1.2M_{\odot}$, through neutronisation and/or photo-disintegration.  
> **username_10**: I'm fairly confident that technically, the Sun can become a black hole if it collides with another star. It won't become a black hole on its own, but it could if other massive objects are in the picture.  
> **username_11**: There is at least one more possible fate: The star completely disintegrates in a pair-instability supernova (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair-instability_supernova), leaving no remnant.  
> **username_7**: @username_11 Also, if a white dwarf has a companion it may acquire enough mass to explode as a [Type Ia supernova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_Ia_supernova), leaving no remnant.  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-03-27. Score: 3

I'm not an astronomer, just an enthusiast, but I believe the only way that the sun could become a black hole is if when the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy collide, if our star combines with another star and the mass of the two is great enough to create a black hole then it's possible; however, from what I've read, despite the enormous size of galaxies and the absurd number of stars within them, because the planets and stars (especially in the outer edges of the galaxy) are so far away that collisions are actually very unlikely.

Some sources of information (none talk about the black hole scenario though):
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEI8WBJkKk>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uiv6tKtoKg>
<http://www.space.com/15947-milky-andromeda-galaxies-collision-simulated-video.html>

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: A large part of this answer has nothing to do with the question, could you please clean it up and add relevant detail.  
> **username_1**: The simple answer is no, it's never going to happen. I have suggested a possible scenario in which our star could become a black hole, or at least a contributing part of it. I don't understand what details are irrelevant to the question. I have edited the answer to include a few sources of information about the collision but there are no details for the hypothetical black hole scenario as it is my own (though obviously not likely unique) creative solution that hadn't yet been proposed in this thread.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2020-09-14. Score: -1

If the size of the black hole is the same as the size of the Sun, then the planets of our Solar system will maintain their orbital path, which will not have a significant effect on them. Even though the Earth will be present in its place, life on it will be destroyed because without the sun's light all the creatures can't survive.

However, there is absolutely no possibility of this happening. Our Sun is too small to become a black hole. For a star to become a black hole, it must be at least ten times the mass of our Sun.

![Stars around the mass as the Sun... Eventually become white dwarfs. Stars with 4-8 times the mass of the Sun... Eventually become neutron stars. Stars with more than 8 times the mass of the Sun... Eventually become black holes.](https://i.sstatic.net/1tTNv.png)

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: The diagram contains incorrect information. Stars of 4-8 solar masses will not end up as neutron stars and most work suggests stars of at least 20 solar masses are required to produce black holes.  
> **username_5**: @Rob Jeffries agreed. Numerous radio galaxies and AGN have masses about $10^8 M\odot$, so I don't understand how the answer or the quoted reference therein comes to this conclusion.  
> **username_6**: Why is the neutron star depicted as black?  
> **username_7**: @username_5 Why are radio galaxies & AGN relevant to this answer, or this question?  

---

