Posted on 02/26/2008 7:44:39 PM PST by Libloather
Hope dims that Earth will survive Sun's death
19:09 22 February 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Jason Palmer
The future looks bright for the Earth but not in the way wed hoped. The slim chance our planet will survive when the Sun begins its death throes has been ruled out.
In a few billion years, the Sun will fuse the last of its hydrogen into helium, turn into a red giant and expand to 250 times its current size. At first, the Suns loss of mass will loosen its gravitational pull on Earth, which will allow the planet to migrate to a wider orbit about 7.6 billion years from now.
This process has led some to speculate that the Earth might escape destruction but survival now seems impossible, says Peter Schröder of the University of Guanajuato in Mexico and Robert Smith of the University of Sussex in the UK.
They created the most detailed model to date of the Suns transition to a red giant, based on observations of six nearby red giant stars. Sure enough, they found that Earths orbit will widen at first. But Earth will also induce a tidal bulge on the Suns surface, with its own gravitational pull. The bulge will lag just behind the Earth in its orbit, slowing it down enough to drag it to a fiery demise.
There is one last hope for anybody still living on Earth, the researchers say. In the past, some have suggested that Earths orbit could be tweaked by arranging the fly-by of a nearby asteroid to tug at it. This method could potentially maintain Earths speed enough to keep it in a widening orbit, they say.
Journal reference: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13022.x)
(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...
In 6 billion years, humanity will have long since turned into fossil fuels many times over, and will have been superceded by waves of new species.
Change!
I guess it would it be kinda cool. Good one.
No more sun..awesome..NO MORE MONDAY MORNINGS!!!!!!!!!..SLEEP ALL DAY!!!!!!!!!!WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
By all means - SAVE THE CHILDREN!
Oh crud! Now I gotta rethink that whole term life insurance thingy...
/sarc
Starting Jan 21st 2009, we will all be moved into state funded caves. Soylent Green will be delivered 3 times a day to the caves and a steady cycle of regurgitated Hollywood reruns will be available for viewing on exercycle generator powered television sets.
No commute because there is no place to go. Stay in your cave, comrade.
Yes...by flying across the rainbow and sewing the sky with clouds of love!
He will touch the face of the sun with a magical kiss of candyfloss warmth and beat back all the badness by spreading his good cheer in fathomless billows of chocolatey-sweet grace!
What’ll they worship when the moon and that meteor are gone?
And, what would be the use of widening the orbit with an asteroid in an effort to survive if there were no more sun???
I’m beginning to wonder if college is offering advanced degrees in Moron these days.
“Yes...by flying across the rainbow and sowing the sky with clouds of love!
He will touch the face of the sun with a magical kiss of candyfloss warmth and beat back all the badness by spreading his good cheer in fathomless billows of chocolatey-sweet grace!”
PRICELESS!
Why the sudden surge in news stories about the earth’s end billions of years from now? Is a new generation of young reporters just discovering this? I learned the same thing in elementary school in the 1950s.
“What temperature will the earth be during this? I’m under the impression that the earth is in the perfect orbit needed to maintain the range in temperature we have now. But it won’t matter anyway, we will all be dead and the planet will be long gone from burning fossil fuels and creating ‘global warming’.”
Well, according to Rod Serling in the Twilight Zone, some chick will be dreaming that we’re getting sucked into the sun and growing hotter all the time, while really it’s just her fever and as we go into a wider orbit, we’ll be getting colder all the time. Fortunately, Al Gore says that the fossil fuels that we burn will create more greenhouse gases, thereby keeping us warm with global warming. So Rod Serling and Al Gore have saved us, with the help of their faithful companion, Man-Bear-Pig.
Does that include Halle Berry? I'm fully prepared.
Be careful, with prose like that he may ask you to be his new speech writer.
Lettuce see: If we can “move” an asteroid, and that asteroid - which, I assume, by affecting the earth’s mass over a long enough period of time moves the earth’s orbit - why not just use that same ????? (mythical) process to “move” the earth?
Now remember, the Lord promised Noah that He would NOT destroy the earth (again) by water. His promise does, however, still leave open fire.
Oh yah, we'll be fartin in silk then!
It's time to pack. (BTW, China and Canada are breaking records for snowfall, the ice flows are growing and Michigan has run out of road salt.) I'm not waiting around...
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