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Will the sun explode?
#31
RE: Will the sun explode?
(August 31, 2018 at 12:23 am)AFTT47 Wrote:
(August 30, 2018 at 10:38 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: The estimate I saw say earth will remain habitable to complex animals for much less than that.   Basically in 200 million years, a threshold will be crossed where, in order to further reduce green house effect to keep up with increasing output of the sun, so much CO2 has to be removed that plant photo synthesis will become increasingly difficult.

Basically we are screwed either way.  If we keep CO2 in the atmosphere, then in 200 million years the average global temperature will go up 15 degrees, and humans will literally cook without artificial air conditioning because over most of the planet surface the wet bulb temperature will exceed the human body temperature, leaving humans unable to cool off by fanning or sweating.   If we reduce CO2 to levels that will keep large part of planet survivable in terms of temperature, planets will stop being able to carry on with photosynthesis.

Whatever the time-frame, there is a lot that can be done about it. Star lifting is just one possibility. Gigantic solar shades are another. Altering Earth's orbit is another. Honestly, I think this is nothing but an academic exercise because even using your pessimistic example of 200K years, our civilization will either be dead by then or so advanced that this will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

The conventional thought that humans are bound to planets is just plain wrong. There is enough mass in a single planet the size of Earth to build rotating habitats with the land area of approximately a billion Earths. I'm used to thinking big but that number astounds even me.

Rotating habitats using artificial spin gravity can be built to pretty big sizes (>300 square miles) using just mundane materials like steel. Using advanced materials like carbon nanotubes, they can be built with the interior area equal to continents.

Unlike planets, rotating habitats can be moved fairly easily - especially if you are talking about doing it over galactic time. The truth is, even a massive planet like Earth can be moved over time. If you can accurately predict the solar output increase, you will know how much mass you need to alter its orbit slowly outbound. I don't think Earth's value will be anything more than nostalgia at that point but if we are still around, we'll have the ability to save it.

All these solutions are still approaches limited by our current conceptual proximity to our pre-tool making, pre-firing using origins, the reflect an overwhelming desire for the comfort of the familiar in our solutions, and attempts to somehow preserve or replicate through brute force some aspect of the environment and identity we evolved and taken shape in over several hundred of millions of years.

If we have several hundred million years in which to improve all aspects of technology, and biology, then I suspect we would have achieve total fusion of biology and technology, seamless integration of mind and computer, and between biological consciousness and artificial circuitry.  We would have totally forgotten any sentimental attachment to savanah, jungle, oceans, mountains, our biological bodies, or even such sense of self as having been bequeathed to us through our evolution.  I suspect we might move by simply uploading ourselves, perhaps all of us, onto Hardened microcircuitry and then transmit ourselves as signals to a receivers at a different location.
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#32
RE: Will the sun explode?
(August 31, 2018 at 1:17 am)Kit Wrote: I was looking this up for my space odyssey novel that I am taking another gander at writing.  The fact that the sun won't explode ruined the first paragraph of the novel.  But what kind of writer would I be if I gave up after this setback?

All you have to do is blame the Vogons.
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#33
RE: Will the sun explode?
(August 29, 2018 at 9:46 pm)Kit Wrote: I am getting conflicting answers from science sources.  Therefore, I would like your educated opinion.

One source states the sun will never explode because its mass is not large enough to cause it to explode at the end of its life cycle.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.univers...plode/amp/

Another source states it will explode.
https://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=71

What say you?

The Sun will undergo a helium flash in another billion years or so:

Wikipedia -- Helium Flash

But, life on earth will have long since perished:


Quote:600 million
The Sun's rising luminosity begins to disrupt the carbonate–silicate cycle; higher luminosity raises weathering of surface rocks, which traps carbon dioxide in the ground as carbonate. Volcanoes will continue to pump carbon dioxide for at least the next 1.1 billion years.[57] However, the long term trend is for the carbon dioxide level to steadily drop.[58]
[Image: 16px-Butterfly_icon_%28Noun_Project%29.svg.png]
600 million
By this time, carbon dioxide levels will fall to the point at which C3 photosynthesis used by trees is no longer possible. By this point, forests will no longer be able to survive, causing a mega mass extinction of the Earth's vegetation.[59][60]

Wikipedia -- Timeline of the far future.
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#34
RE: Will the sun explode?
Helium flash is a core phenomenon.  It will produce no external manifestation reminiscent of any explosion.
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#35
RE: Will the sun explode?
(August 29, 2018 at 9:46 pm)Kit Wrote: I am getting conflicting answers from science sources.  Therefore, I would like your educated opinion.

One source states the sun will never explode because its mass is not large enough to cause it to explode at the end of its life cycle.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.univers...plode/amp/

Another source states it will explode.
https://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=71

What say you?

You have more to worry about with asteroids and comets hitting the planet than you do the sun doing anything. Our sun currently is in mid life. Stars have several ways they die, and they always die. Our sun has about I think another 5 billion years. The planet will see some sort of mass extinction events in the future to, just like the 5 we've had so far. It is highly unlikely that our species will survive another 5 billion years. It isn't being fatalistic on  my part, just a statement of how our planet works and effects evolution. We have more to fear from our own behaviors currently. 

You have more to worry about with climate change and nuclear war right now. We cant help what the cosmos does, but we really need to as a species start caring about our planet now. We can only extend the right, but it won't be forever.
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#36
RE: Will the sun explode?
(August 31, 2018 at 9:40 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Helium flash is a core phenomenon.  It will produce no external manifestation reminiscent of any explosion.

That is true, as the helium flash will only last an hour or so; however, the Sun will leave the main sequence, and there will be irrevocable changes after that.

P.S.  Helium flashes do leave some observational changes:

Astronomers observe star reborn in a flash
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