When will the sun explode?

[Admin]

The sun is in its main sequence, but how do scientists know when our nearest star will begin to call it quits?

When will the sun explode? : Read more

 

[billslugg]

The Sun will begin noticeably enlarging in about a billion years and will achieve full blown Red Giant status in 7.5 billion years. At that point it will be 256 times its current diameter and only 6% of its current mass. The habitable zone will be about 60 times further from the Sun than it is currently. In order to avoid catastrophe we must, beginning in a billion years, move the Earth outward at a rate of about one kilometer per year. This will require a force of about 1x10^13 Newtons, achievable with a beam of light but at a power requirement of about 20,000 times the amount of solar energy impinging on Earth. This will be a tough one, best start brainstorming now.

 

[sam85geo]

IMO, H. Sapiens doesn't have to worry about our Sun leaving the main sequence. We'll all, every last one of us, if still on Earth, irrespective of political affiliation and organic diets, be extinct within 800K years or sooner as global temperatures increase, and/or we outstrip our life source resources, or we envoke nuclear war destruction. It's called re-cycling and that's what the Universe does. Note: the longest surviving Homo species was Ergaster/ Erectus for 2my.