Good news, everyone! If, like me, you were worried that your plans to live forever were eventually going to be interrupted by Earth being swallowed by the Sun in about 5 billion years, as astronomers have long predicted, you may be able to cross that worry off your list. According to a new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Earth might actually avoid being engulfed by our dying star after all.
The old prediction was that when the Sun exhausts the hydrogen fueling its core, it will swell into a red giant large enough to consume Mercury, Venus, and eventually Earth. But new computer simulations suggest we might not get burned away like the dry leaf that lands in a hot grill.
The outcome will come down to a kind of cosmic tug-of-war. As the sun grows, its increasing gravitational pull will gradually pull the Earth toward it. But, at the same time, this old star will be shedding huge amounts of mass through powerful stellar winds. Losing mass weakens the sun’s gravitational pull, potentially leading planets like us off the hook and allowing us to drift away.
Earth Might Not Be Swallowed by the Sun After All, New Study Suggests
Older models told us that the inward tug of the sun would ultimately win out. But times changed, along with technology and our understanding of astrophysics, all of which were incorporated into our new and improved models, as well as our observations of a nearby Sun-like star called L2 Puppis, which the research team used as a stand-in for our sun’s potential future.
With all that factored into the models, researchers found that the sun’s tidal effects may be much weaker than we used to think. If true, Earth’s orbit could slowly expand enough to stay just beyond the sun’s reach. Under this model, Mars would also survive. Unfortunately, we have to pour one out for Mercury and Venus, as they would be yanked in and burned to a crisp.
Of course, the scientists involved caution that escaping the sun isn’t the same as surviving it. Way before the sun reaches its largest size, the increasing heat will boil away the Earth’s oceans, tear apart the atmosphere, and basically sterilize the planet. The earth itself remains physically intact, but it won’t be the thriving world it once was.
Luckily, there’s plenty of time between now and then to work out how to build those snazzy generation ships science fiction stories have been telling us so much about.
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