>>> > Heres a scary thought, in a few hundred million years time the sun will
>>> > eventually burn out, our planet will get bloody cold, we'll all die, so
>WHO's
>>> > gonna look after our LBC's then..........
>>>
>> My astronomy friends tell me that before the sun cools that much,
>> it will become a "red giant" and grow to the size that will include
>> where earth orbits now (which will be terribly hard on the paint)...
>> Hey, I don't know about you but I'll have the "Green Man" off-planet
>> by then!
>
> Ah, but the decreased mass of the sun will cause the Earth to be
>orbiting further out by then, I think roughly between current and Mars, or
>perhaps even as far out as Mars is, and thus it won't get englobed. A bit
>cooked, perhaps.
I cannot hold back any longer. The Sun will become a red giant in
about 5 billion years. The solar mass loss will not be enough to
alter the orbit of the Earth until after the Sun becomes a red giant.
It is not believed, however, that the Sun will get large enough to
engulf the Earth. It will most likely engulf Venus.
This is all moot anyway. People who do climate modeling believe that
the Earth will suffer a runaway green house in about a billion years
because the Sun is getting gradually brighter. At that point, the
Earth's climate will look a lot like Venus'. Then it really will be
difficult keeping our cars running cool.
I am glad that I can finally contribute something to this system. I
know much more about Astronomy than TR's.
-Hal Levison, TR3A and TR6
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Hal Levison
Geophysical, Astrophysical, (I) hal@gort.space.swri.edu
& Planetary Sciences (D) swri::levison
Southwest Research Institute
1050 Walnut St, Suite 429 (303) 546-0290
Boulder, CO 80302 Fax: (303) 546-9687
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