It is true that the Sun, having exhausted all its fuel, will die in about 5 billion years. But before this process, our star will grow to the point that life on Earth will be virtually wiped out
Our sun is located approximately In the middle of his life. In fact, a star of this size lives for about 10 billion years, so it will become so in 5 billion years Red giant And then it will collapse into one White Nana. This process will continue for millions of years: when our star runs out of hydrogen, it will grow larger until it reaches… Orbit of Mercury. This means that their temperatures will also rise significantly. When even the last hydrogen atom is converted into helium by thermonuclear reactions, there will be a new collapse that will raise temperatures to 10 to 8 degrees Kelvin. At these numbers, helium will fuse into carbon and oxygen, so much so that it will reach its atmosphere To incorporate Venus as well. We thought we still had 5 billion years to go, but by then the human race would no longer exist on Earth, because our planet would become uninhabitable. Here’s what we should expect.
What will happen to our planet when the sun dies?
You yourself understand that it will not be possible for us to stay on Earth when the Sun becomes a red giant. Let’s remember that this scenario is classic for stars like ours, which don’t have enough mass to explode as supernovas. In short, in about 5 billion years, once each thermonuclear process has finished inside itself, the Sun will shed its outer layers, creating a kind of… Planetary nebula Which will slowly cool to become a white dwarf.
The mysterious fate of the Earth
As for Earth, astronomers are divided. Some believe that the planet will be absorbed by this red giant, while others assume so He can save himself. But under what circumstances? Such high temperatures from the sun would literally Ocean evaporation Making our beautiful planet a living hell. A significant part of the atmosphere, among other things, will spread into space and all this will happen not in 5 billion years, but in 3.5.
Our hope
What we can hope for the future of the human race is that by then we will have finally found a way to migrate to another part of the solar system. Or even better, near another, younger star, so our civilization can continue. However, it is not certain that humans will be able to find another habitable planet. There’s also a risk that our species will go extinct before then, for the reasons we’ve explained here.
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