WhatsUP! - What happens when the sun finally dies.

[SkyWatcher]

WhatsUP! - What happens when the sun finally dies?

I keep having to answer questions about the "end of the world" 2012 Hoax! which is 100% JUNK SCIENCE;* so let's talk about when the Earth will actually REALLY DIE!

In about 3-4 billion years the sun will begin BRIGHTENING and slowly expanding, and our life here on Earth will come to an end. This will not be a catastrophic explosion -- but a rather leisurely event happening over millions and millions of years. The first thing that will happen is Earth temperatures will rise DRAMATICALLY--* HIGH ENOUGH to boil the oceans away! Water will only exist in small pools in the deepest ocean canyons. By then all life on Earth-- except for some exotic high temperature bacteria will be long dead or moved away completely from the dying Earth.

If the sun continues to expand out to just about the orbit of Earth-- even the rocks will become molten. If it actually expands out to and beyond the Earth's orbit the entire planet will be vaporized. To survive mankind will have long ago moved outward in the solar system to Mars or maybe one of the moons of Jupiter. But the worst is yet to come!

After many more millions of years the sun will puff-off it's outer layers and shrink into a white dwarf star about the same size as Earth. Although it will still be bright it will be so small that it's heat will have very little affect-- and Mars and the moons of Jupiter will go into a deep freeze FOREVER-- with temperatures 100s of degrees below zero.

If humankind still survives in that distant future -- they will need to abandon the solar system and relocate among the stars of the Milky Way Galaxy; on some distant unknown planet circling a nearby "young" star.

AND-- astronomers from some alien civilization in this distant future, might just look at the solar system in their telescopes and see a Nebula somewhat like the Helix Nebula shown in the above picture... and not know that at one time in the long ago past-- a race of "humans" occupied a planet circling the dead star in the center of the SOL nebula.

Watch this video-- "What happens when the sun dies?" --

http://www.neighborsgo.com/video/1286

*

Clear Skies!

TelescopeMan



Read More!...

[Kohina]

I just read Lawrence Krauss' Atom (A great book btw!) and in the book he said that after only about 2 billion years the temperature on earth would rise so much, due to sun getting "brighter", that it would kill all life on earth. Don't remember exactly what the temp was... maybe around 1200 degrees celsius.

EDIT: So after all life has died on earth, the sun still shines for a very long time. In the book the actual death of the sun is described in high detail very beautifully (even though it's obviously a dramatic event).

[pederv]

The tidal forces on Jupiters moons may still keep them warm enough to support life and provide a geothermal energy source. So we could stick around and watch the light show.

[Voyager3]

I always get a kick out of people talking about humanity being around in 2, 3 or 4 billions years.
Humanoid mamals have been around on Earth for (far) less than a million years, and in that time have evolved (genetically, if not intelligence-wise) a very great deal.

I would like to know if anyone thinks humanity will be around in another million years. The way idiots today are driving their SUVs and flying halfway around the globe for business meetings that they could just as easily attend using video-conferencing, I have serious doubts we'll be around even in a 1,000 years.

And if we are around in a million years, does anyone really believe we'll look (be) the same as we are today?

2 billion years!

Some folks really have a lot of optimism...
(Nothing wrong with that, mind you. But the next time you fill up at the gas station, just try and remember where humanity was 100,000 years ago).

[jenniferchristine]

We'll all look like the Mekon....

[jenniferchristine]

I reckon anyone over the height of 5'6" shouldn't be allowed to breed - and in about 200 years, anyoneover 4'6" shouldn'tbe allowed to breed - thus slowly making humans a lot smaller - grow an apple and feed the family for a couple of days. I steer could feed a small town for a month.
We could end up about 2 foot high so all the houses could be split horizontally into three times as many dwellings and then each room could become a family home.
Cars could then be 200cc and only 6 foot long and be called a limo. 500 miles to the gallon.

[pederv]

Babylon 5, [Registered users can see links. ].

[Kohina]

Originally Posted by Voyager3

I always get a kick out of people talking about humanity being around in 2, 3 or 4 billions years.

*SNIP*

Some folks really have a lot of optimism...
(Nothing wrong with that, mind you. But the next time you fill up at the gas station, just try and remember where humanity was 100,000 years ago).

I was talking about how all life would end after 2 billion years. That is plants, bacteria etc.

How long does humanity have? Well if a huge asteroid (10-15km, 6-9miles in diameter) strikes earth approximately once in 100 million years and kills most life on earth, we'd have to develop some kick ass shelters to survive 2 billion years, and this is of course leaving out every other possible way for us to wipe out (wars, diseases, energy crisis...)

And also I think it's quite an arrogant claim that it would be us watching the sun brighten up and killing all life. Looking back 2 billion years, photosynthesis had been around for about a billion years and the simple multi-cellular life was just getting used to using oxygen as energy. No humans or astronomers for 1,9998 billion years. Why would the evolution stop there? Even if we somehow miraculously would survive all the cataclysmic events that are likely to take place in 2 billion years, and we'd be able to settle on a new planet, still it wouldn't probably be "us" watching the earth boil, but more likely our relatives in the way e.g. orangutans are our "cousins in DNA".

If we couldn't get out and all life would just vanish without leaving a trace and astronomers in some distant galaxy would look at our sun blowing up never knowing about our once life-carrying planet, I still would not be all depressed. The atoms in us would live on. After the red dwarf phase, the sun would violently throw off it's outer layers, forming a planetary nebula. Maybe some of your left arm atoms were in those outer layers, and they would travel for aeons across the galaxies and, who knows, one of them could hit a planet where life was once again possible.

[Voyager3]

Originally Posted by Kohina

I was talking about how all life would end after 2 billion years. That is plants, bacteria etc...


...If we couldn't get out and all life would just vanish without leaving a trace and astronomers in some distant galaxy would look at our sun blowing up never knowing about our once life-carrying planet, I still would not be all depressed. The atoms in us would live on. After the red dwarf phase, the sun would violently throw off it's outer layers, forming a planetary nebula. Maybe some of your left arm atoms were in those outer layers, and they would travel for aeons across the galaxies and, who knows, one of them could hit a planet where life was once again possible.

That's a very cool-headed way of seeing things, and I agree.

We don't even have to look at the life and birth of stars for some mind-boggling recycling of elements.
Just take water, which comprises around 80% of our bodies:
Water is a finite ressource that keeps getting recyled through the water cycle. The water in our bodies is the same water that was around 4 billion years ago, which means some of the water molecules that we are made of could have also been part of long extinct plants, oceans, dinosaurs or even great figures of history.

And as you said, these elements (hydrogen, oxygen and all the others) come from outer space, so pushing this reasonong to its limits, we could be made of stuff that actually lived on other worlds eons ago.

I apologize if I sounded snarky. It's just that I keep getting looks of horror from non-astronomers when I tell them the sun will die in 4 billion years (or so).
So many people just don't get how the chemistry of the universe works. (As for the physics of the universe, I won't even go there. My brain-pan is nowhere large enough. Besides, it seems the speed of light is no longer an absolute...I'm having a really hard time dealing with that one!)

[Talitha]

Originally Posted by SkyWatcher

WhatsUP! - What happens when the sun finally dies?

Dunno, we're still trying to figure out what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.