‘The fate of Earth depends on a delicate balance’: Our planet may survive the death of the sun after all, new models hint
A new study using state-of-the-art models suggests Earth may survive the Sun’s catastrophic death, even as our star outgrows the innermost planets.
The findings offer a possible alternative fate for our planet, which was thought to face certain death. Sun Billions of years from now it will be engulfed in thermonuclear hell. As a yellow dwarf starThe Sun is expected to remain relatively calm, 10 billion years of life. But in about 5 billion years, it will run out of hydrogen for fusion in its core and hydrogen fusion will begin in its shell, causing it to expand immensely into a red giant star and then into an even larger star.agb star,” before eventually dying as a white dwarf.
Now, in a letter to the editor published in the magazine on June 19 astronomy and astrophysicsAstronomers used stellar evolution models and observations of a nearby dying star to reevaluate Earth’s ultimate, potentially fiery fate.
solar tug of war
when the sun enters it later life stagesEarth will be at the mercy of two competing forces – a fate shared by countless worlds across unimaginably vast periods of cosmic time.
As the Sun expands to potentially hundreds of times its current size, increased tidal forces will pull Earth Our rapidly filling balloons, towards the fluttering star. Yet the rising sun will also lose its bloated outer layers to space through the stellar wind. As it loses most of its mass and becomes lighter, its gravitational grip will weaken, causing our planet to drift outward into the depths. Solar systemShow models.
“The fate of Earth depends on a delicate balance between these two influences,” Matt Esseldersdoctoral candidate at the KU Leuven Institute of Astronomy in Belgium and first author of the study said in a statement. “If tides dominate, the Earth rotates. If mass loss dominates, the Earth moves into a wider orbit.”
Previous research only complicates the issue. Studies have made different assumptions about solar mass loss, tidal forces, and planetary interactions that may have occurred as the inner Solar System evolved. As a result, it is uncertain whether Earth will survive both of the Sun’s giant phases before our star shrinks into a smaller-but-dense stellar corpse called a white dwarf.
Get the world’s hottest discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
In a ray of hope, astronomers have discovered Intact worlds around white dwarfs. On the other hand, some white dwarf systems are littered with rocky remains Children of their destroyed planets. So the researchers looked east to the Sun-like, dying giant star L2 Puppeis, located 200 light years away.poop deck“The constellation Puppis, to get a glimpse of our solar future. According to previous estimates, L2 Puppis is losing one millionth of a solar mass per year, leaving behind a dusty disk that is believed host a planet 12 to 16 times the mass of Jupiter.
A view from the dying star L2 Puppies.
(Image credit: ESO)
Additionally, the researchers performed state-of-the-art gravitational calculations “based on the internal structure and dynamics of evolved stars” that modeled the orbital evolution of the inner Solar System and the Sun’s lifetime from its initial state to its final phase as a “burned-out” white dwarf.
So long, Mercury and Venus
Based on observations of the mass loss of L2 Puppis combined with updated stellar evolution models, the researchers hypothesized that Earth It will survive because it will move just outside the radius of the expanding Sun.
“The biggest uncertainty now comes not from tidal calculations, but from how much mass the Sun will lose in the future,” Esselders said in the statement. “Current observations of massive stars like the Sun point towards the existence of Earth, but we need better observations before we can be certain.”
A schematic illustration showing the final stages of the Sun, about 5 billion years from now, as it exhausts the supply of hydrogen at its core and potentially expands to hundreds of times its current size. The simulations show that Mercury and Venus would be engulfed, but Earth could escape into a safe orbit.
(Image credit: KU Leuven)
But even if Earth survives, our solar system brothers and sisters will not; simulations suggest Mercury And Vesper Will be surrounded by the hellish glow of our dying star.
Additional stellar observations and better models will help clarify our planet’s fate. For example, the European Space Agency plato missionA space telescope aimed at discovering Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars will launch next year. This will potentially detect planets around aging stars, thus providing a more accurate description of this potentially doomed population.
See with us how much you know about the Sun Sun Quiz!
