Sol: Destroyer of Worlds

Stardust

If the biosphere somehow manages to survive through the loss of CO2 (and eventually oxygen), the rise in air temperatures, and the boiling of the oceans, the odds of other life in the universe are quite high! Unfortunately for life on Earth, the Sun has one final action that will certainly end the Terran experience. As the Sun exhausts its supply of hydrogen fuel, it will begin to expand as it transitions to its cranky old-age red giant phase. Mercury and Venus are doomed to be engulfed by the expanding star. Mars and the outer planets will be altered immensly as they experience luminosities much higher than current values. The fate of Earth is still uncertain. It may be pushed far enough away from the expanding sun by solar mass-loss to not be engulfed, though recent projections predict that Earth will in fact not be spared. Either way, the expansion of the Sun will ensure that no matter how resiliant life on Earth may be, it will be finite in the end... likely becoming stardust once again.

Not even Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars will survive the expansion of the Sun.

I hope you have enjoyed this uplifting exploration into the future of life on Earth! If you want to explore the possibility of the anthropogenically forced termination of life on Earth, however unlikely that may be, follow this link.

References

Schroder, K.P. & Smith, R.C. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 386, 155-163 (2008).

This website designed by Brian Vanderwende, 2012.