RE: There is little time.
March 28, 2012 at 9:41 pm
(This post was last modified: March 28, 2012 at 9:42 pm by Cyberman.)
Well, by the time it gets to the white dwarf stage, it will already have been too late for Earth. The physical and chemical processes involved in the life cycle of stars is really a fascinating topic. Put simply for the purposes of this thread, the Sun will reach a fuel crisis which it can only ease by swelling up into a red giant and 'eating' the inner planets out to at least as far as Mars. It will stabilise in this form but it is only a temporary stability; the fuel crisis will eventually overtake it until the poor old Sun is forced to compensate by blowing off its outer layers. Ultimately, as I noted eariler, what remains is a white dwarf at the centre of a pretty new planetary nebula. It doesn't actually stop producing light and heat, though it's nowhere near as bright or hot as it used to be. Eventually, though, it will fade away into total obscurity but that will be about as far into the future again as the first of these events is from now.
Sorry to be pedantic but it really is a fascinating subject. However, I'll go now.
Sorry to be pedantic but it really is a fascinating subject. However, I'll go now.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
