Good question! The Sun is an immense source of energy for the Solar System, and anything catastrophic would certainly effect all of the System and our lives in it. The Sun has an extremely hot and dense core, composed of mostly hydrogen and helium, which nuclear fusion occurs. This reaction releases an intense amount of energy, light, and heat, only a fraction of which hits our Earth and is absorbed.

If a terrible event caused the Sun to “explode” or to break apart, then the loss of density would stop the fusion reactions. The consequences would be that the material in the Sun would scatter and all life on Earth would be drastically affected. Eventually, perhaps millions of years into the future, the matter may come back together and some new star system might form. Interestingly, scientists predict that in the future when the Sun runs out of fuel for fusion, it will grow dramatically to become a Red Giant. This process billions of years into the future would cause the first few planets (Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth) to crash into the surface of the new Red Sun.