Only Ten Billion Years Left

[Billy_Kinetta]

Better get on that Australian trip you've been planning.

Scientists now believe they know when the sun will explode

 

[Auld Phart]

Guess I wont' subscribe to any new magazines.

 

[toobfreak]

Better get on that Australian trip you've been planning.

Scientists now believe they know when the sun will explode

Actually, we've known for like a 100 years that the Sun will faze out in about another 10 billion years. They are just getting the exact time a little better nailed down now with a bit more confidence. The Sun is a type G4 star along the Herzsprung-Russel chart of main sequence stellar evolution. As a dwarf star, it is now in the point of very gradually swelling and warming. In several more billion years, the Earth will become uninhabitable and eventually it will swell into a red giant, consume the earth, then throw off its outer shell of gases in a colorful pattern called a "planetary nebula" as the Sun completes its final phases of helium, oxygen and carbon burning, before cooling off after the ejecta is thrown off to cool into its final fate, a white dwarf. A slow and rather uneventful ending compared to the super massive giants which explode upon reaching the higher state of producing iron, triggering the ultimate collapse of these biggest stars and production of all the heavier elements.

For life on Earth, we might only have 1 or 2 billion more years before the Earth can no longer stay fairly well as we know it today as the lovely blue and green orb it is. Long before the 10 billion years is reached, the Earth will be baked dry, bereft of life and eventually baked, blown clear of all atmosphere and finally consumed.

 

[ChrisL]

Now THAT is what you call global warming!

 

[deanrd]

Don't worry, Republicans will abolish the EPA long before then, so we can choke out our lives in filth. Their plan all along.

 

[aaronleland]

I don't care if it explodes in 100 years. As long as I'm not around, fuck everybody else.