Sun burns out in 200 years!?

[getbush]

Ok maybe. But it is constantly expanding now. It doesn't just start rapidly 5 billion years out.

 

[Albatross]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
200 million

you missed the million part of it

you scared me,i thought you wrote 2 million.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: getbush
Well the common theory people keep mentioning, that the sun is half way done and has maybe 5-6 billion more years also has another point. Under this idea, it's not the end of the sun, it's implosion that will be disastrous for earth. That would actually happen a short 400-500 million years from now as all the water is boiled off the surface of the earth due to the sun constantly getting hotter. So somewhere before that point is the end of life as we know it. Earth will already be a dry rock before the suns implodes.

I haven't heard anything like this.
What I've read is that in about 5 billion years, +/- 100 million, that's when the sun will start to cause trouble. That's when it'll start to expand, possibly growing large enough to evelop Earth. I think that'll take a few thousand years though.

I did just find this. According to that, "In the next 1.1 billion years the amount of energy the Earth will get from the Sun (which is directly related to the Sun's temperature) will increase by almost 10%."
Ok, so 1.1 billion years from now. I'd hope that by then some intelligent life form from this planet will have left the star system. Who knows what grand things intelligence and sentience will allow by then.

I saw it mentioned on Space.com.

James Kasting

Before Earth's oceans ever have a chance to freeze or fry, they might have already dried up and evaporated into space, said James Kasting, a Penn State professor of meteorology and geosciences. Kasting estimates his version of the end is a mere 1 billion years away.

"The sun is getting brighter with time and that affects the Earth's climate," Kasting said. "Eventually temperatures will become high enough so that the oceans evaporate."

Link


edit...screwed up the link

 

[Jeff7]

Huh, well that's interesting.

Either way, tens or hundreds of millions of years before it's a serious issue. During that time, homo sapien will fade, and numerous other "species" will take our place, depending on how consistent the definition of the word "species" stays over that time. The term "human" may come to encompass whatever the dominant intelligent life form on Earth happens to be. I think that just in the next few thousand years, colonies on Mars and the Moon will be created, assuming we don't nuke ourselves back to the Middle Ages in the meantime. Or better yet, develop antimatter weapons. I love the smell of gamma radiation in the morning.

It might work out perfectly though. Sun gets hotter, Venus' atmosphere gets blown away, so it looks like Mercury. By then, Earth looks like Venus. Meanwhile, Mars is starting to look mighty Earth-like.

 

[acibil]

I heard this on the radio also. they said they read the story on the drudge report and they definitely said 200 years, not 200 million or 200 billion.

 

[Howard]

You know, all we really need is huge matter-to-energy (and vice versa) converters, and everybody'd be set.

 

[UncleWai]

Oh shit I better go hug some trees right now.

 

[Evadman]

It's gonna get dark, we will all need flashlights.

 

[Rogodin2]

We'll run out of oil/cheap energy long before the sun burns out (even if it is 200 years). I gave this thread -43 stars because of it's LF.

Rogo

 

[Miramonti]

If it were losing mass that quickly, we'd be drifting further and further away from the sun much more rapidly than we are now, due to the lessened gravitational pull, and global warming would be the very last thing we'd be worrying about.

/edit: keep in mind that not everything you read is necessarily true.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Don't worry guys, I've just called Ra and he said it's all good to go for another 5 billion years.