The Death of the Sun - The End of Life on Planet Earth
One day the Sun will die. One day the Sun will “eat” planet Earth and life on Earth will stop. Is that scary? Oh yes it is, but do not worry. The sun will shine the next five billion years before it becomes the “Death Star”.
Nothing lasts forever, not even the sun. During the next five billion years the sun will continue shining and giving us energy and chance to live on our planet. After five billion years the sun has used all its “fuel”. At this time several chemical reactions happen, causing that the outer layers of the sun start expanding. During few hundred million years the sun becomes a red giant that will “eat” Mercury and Venus. The new red giant can then be seen as far as 160 light years away.
The core of the Sun will activate again, which will blow out the gas layer by layer. A planetary nebula is created. In the middle of that planetary nebula is our old sun, which has now become a white dwarf. The new white dwarf will become cooler step by step until all chemical reactions stop. The sun has died.
The future does not sound good. It is a bit dramatic and scary. Anyhow, we do not need to be afraid at all. When we think in which scale these phenomena happen, we realize that there is not need to worry at all. The universe was born 13.7 billion years ago and the sun will continue shining the next five billion years. Human being has measured the time only few thousand years, which is really nothing compared to figures such as 5 billion years and 13.7 billion years. So, there is no need to be afraid of the future of the sun because the things happen during very very long time. Our life on Earth is not in danger when it comes to the sun, but the fact is that one day the sun will die, for sure. When that has happened, there is no life on Earth.
If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to our RSS Feed or Email Newsletter.This article was written by Marko Pyhajarvi and its original location is in HomeboyAstronomy.Com astronomy blog. For more great astronomy articles, please visit HomeboyAstronomy.Com! Share This
I think we will be hit by asteroid first
Oh yes, that’s very likely. I agree with you, Alex. In this post I just wanted to discuss about the future of the Sun. I wrote about this some time ago. Alex, if you’re interested check this post: http://homeboyastronomy.com/2008/01/31/killer-asteroids-one-day-an-asteroid-will-slam-into-our-planet/
Why worry about the sun dying out and killing us? I bet gloabal worming or buning holes in our ozone will kill us first. The sun is going to dy like everythinf else will, but their are more important things that might kill this generation before we have to worry about the generation that will be 5 billoin years later.
As Marko said, nothing lasts forever, not even the Sun. Not even the universe itself. It is most probable that Homo Sapiens will seize to exist long before. However, we are dreamers and we also like science fiction. There is also the possibility that we will survive, by colonising other stars and eventually the whole galaxy. Depending on Drake’s equations parameters, there is a possibility that there is only one civilization per galaxy capable of achieving technology. Perhaps we are that civilization. Perhaps, even, we may be able to open parallel universes through black holes, if you believe some of he new theories.
Ashlie, thanks for your comment. You’re absolutely right, Homo Sapiens will disappear much before the sun dies. In this post I wanted to talk about the interesting future of the sun and nearby planets. My intention was not to worry about it. As we know, it will happen so far in the future that there is no point in worrying about it. As you said, global warming is much more important issue right now, but as a topic it is not related to astronomy. It is more on environmental side.
Pericles, interesting points. The universe (at least this one) is so huge that at least I believe there are other forms of life as well. Not necessarily humans like us, but may be bacteria or something else. I don’t mean “green little men from Mars”..
Pericles, you said the universe itself will seize to exist. This is an interesting field of discussion. Remember my post related to Friedmann’s Three Assumptions? http://homeboyastronomy.com/2007/10/16/h/
Notice also that some folks claim that there is an infinite amount of parallel universes.
According to Friedmann, the universe might exist “forever”. Don’t as how much is that
http://homeboyastronomy.com/2008/02/03/black-hole-video-stephen-hawking-talking-about-black-holes-and-his-theory/
I gotta say the claim “infinite amount of parallel universes” is mindblowing. It really expands my thinking and makes ordinary dying people, like me, a bit confused.
Alex, interesting point but I do not think an asteroid will hit the Earth. I think over the course of the next 4.5 billion years, before the Sun becomes our home planet’s enemy that it will continue to shine its life giving rays and keep us safe from anything like that happening. Ashlie I completely agree with you. The fact is global warming is a huge concern for us right now and the fact is that if we do not do something soon to control this then our oceans will melt away much faster than the current prediction which is expected to occur 1.1 billion years from now. The fact is we shouldn’t be worried about the Sun but it is just so hard to imagine that such an amazing star could wipe almost half the planets out of our solar system. Consicently, this brings up another point. Scientists know that Mercury and Venus will be incinerated from the Sun’s death but that the Earth could potentially be spared. Speaking in a logical form, I find this completely impossible because the Sun will be over 100 times bigger and 500 times brighter than it is right now when it hits its red giant stage. This means that Mercury, Venus, and Earth are not the only planets on the future death list. Mars, Saturn, and potenially Jupiter could face doom in a few short billion years. Sadly this means we would only have two planets, being Uranus and Neptune left in the Milky Way. We can’t say any longer that pluto is a planet since it has been formally downgraded.
Dave, thanks for your interesting comment. Just to correct a little, in this article I was not pointing out that we should be worried about the Sun. Instead I wanted to discuss about this interesting upcoming phenomenon related to Sun.
About global warming I completely agree with you. Right now we should really be worried about the near future. Although it is not directly about astronomy, I should probably write an article about it. It is definitely a serious situation right now.
Dave, you also pointed out another interesting thing. You mentioned about the future of other planets of our solar system. I didn’t know about those, and I must say, it sounds very interesting.
hi everybody! I just woke up and i dreamed about the sun explosion…i was so worried about it and it seemed so real to me that I woke up and checked if the sun is there..its strange for me because I didn’t think about it since I was 6 grade it was so scary for me
However I saw that the sun exploded like a bomb but huge..and I dont know how after a while there was another sun..ahahaha. That’s funny. However this dream gave me something to think about and it let me to write here..w.e.
I wanted to ask mark.. U said that the ” fuel” on sun is going to finish..but if humans in the future with advanced technologies go on the sun and release some material needed for the sun to keep going the nuclear reactions?? Is that possible?
DaVid, you just had a nightmare that sounds like a supernova explosion. The good thing is that you were just dreaming
The “fuel” of the Sun is Hydrogen. Although our technology probably will develop very much, I don’t believe humans will ever be able to approach the Sun because it is so hot (5780 K). Another problem is to create and carry absolutely huge amounts of Hydrogen from our planet to the Sun. It really sounds impossible.
Anyhow, don’t worry. It will take 900 million years until the average temperature of our planet goes above +30 centigrade. After that life on Earth will be difficult. After 1.9 billion years the oceans will start boiling. We have 900 million years left, so we can take it relaxed.
but somebody says that because of pollution the global temperature will increase by 1 degree and it will cause like hurricanes and other devastating things..also that if we dont stop to pollute before 2030 the process of global warming will be irreversible..why they are worried about it if u say to take it relaxely because we have 900 million more years?
DaVid, global warming is completely another thing. In this article we discuss about the future of the Sun. From that perspective we have 900 million years left until the Sun starts getting bigger and bigger.
When talking about global warming, it is not anymore related to the Sun. Global warming is based on pollution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming) and it happens inside the atmosphere of the planet. From global warming point of view we really don’t have 900 million years left. We don’t need to worry about the future of the Sun, but we definitely should be worried about global warming.
my —————————-> is so big its changing the path of the earth. we are going to hit the sun and die.
how are you sure this will happen in 5 billion years?
will the sun melt onto the earth?
It was scary at first but after i read this i’m not so scared.
hopefully it happens in 5 BILLION years.
Thank You!
Bye!
(:(
I have heard about some ideas that it might be possibly to use an asteroid to actually move the earth’s orbit further out away from the sun (one person suggested that something safer than an astreoid could be used). The idea involves pulling an astreoid of sufficient size into an orbit involving Jupiter and having it come within 10,000 miles of earth on occasion (around once every 6,000 years). The earth would slowly be pulled further away from the slowly expanding and brightening sun.
There are some details that could be an issue like what would happen to Mercury and Venus if the Earth moved and the issue of perhaps needing to move Mars and possible issues with the Moon but it sounds like it might be plausible at some point in the future.
I first heard about the idea on a DVD series about Astronomy and I found several websites that mention it. Do a search for the idea if you want to know more. It sounds like it might be promising.
This would allow the earth to avoid destruction (or from losing the oceans and having the planet cease to be inhabitable). That would not solve the problem of the sun actually dying but it would buy a lot of time. If humanity had more than 1 billion years to deal with the sun’s death perhaps something could be found (other than only moving to other planets).
Leave your response!
Related Links
Join us in Facebook!
Categories
Archives
Browse Tags
alpha centauri Apophis Asteroid astronauts astronomy astronomy tips black holes CERN ESA free astronomy books free astronomy DVD's free astronomy equipment free astronomy items free astronomy stuff free astronomy videos free giveaways Gemini HiRISE homeboy's astronomy blog homeboyastronomy homeboyastronomy.com ISS LHC lunar eclipse lunar eclipse february 2008 Moon NASA Northern Hemisphere pentagon and satellite pentagon shooting a satellite pentagon shooting satellite with a tactical missille Planets Richard Branson rocket water vapor satellites September 2008 skywatching space debris space flights Stargazing Stars Tips & Tricks tips on astronomy Virgin Galactic weather satellite shootingRecent Comments
Most Commented
Homeboy's Friends