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.

Image source.

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!

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5 Responses

Alex Universe

February 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
1

I think we will be hit by asteroid first
marko

February 11th, 2008 at 1:56 am
2

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/
Ashlie

February 17th, 2008 at 3:34 am
3

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.
Pericles

February 17th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
4

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.
marko

February 18th, 2008 at 9:59 am
5

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/
According to Friedmann, the universe might exist “forever”. Don’t as how much is that Notice also that some folks claim that there is an infinite amount of parallel universes.
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.