Earth Doomed to Fiery End
By Shamini Bundell
It’s official: The End is Nigh, and scientists can predict how and when. Astronomical research from the University of Sussex has looked into the future of our planet and seen it engulfed in the fiery heat of a Red Giant star.A productive use of your remaining time might be to work on a way to harness the gravitational energy of a passing asteroid to try and pull the Earth out of the way. Oh, and by the way, you have about 7.6 billion years to come up with something.
Back in 2002 Dr Robert Smith and Dr Klaus-Peter Schröder from the University of Sussex got all our hopes up by informing us that Earth would be spared – their calculations indicated that super strong solar winds, formed as mass is lost from the dying star, would push the Earth outwards, ahead of the expanding Sun. They’ve now realised that their initial calculations didn’t take into account the effects on the Earth of drag from the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
“The tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun extends a long way beyond its visible surface,” says Dr Smith, “And it turns out the Earth would actually be orbiting within these very low density outer layers”. The drag produced will be enough to pull the planet slowly inwards until it is “captured and vaporised”.
So is there any hope left? Well, I hope you’ve gotten started on that asteroid-harnessing plan, as altering the Earth’s orbit might be the only escape. Dr Korycansky and colleagues from the University of California at Santa Cruz have got a plan: to use an asteroid to borrow energy from Jupiter that will, with maybe a little nudge from Saturn, be able to knock the Earth into a safer orbit. They theorise that this could allow the Earth to survive the Sun’s Red Giant phase.So we’re saved – time to celebrate! Unless, of course, a minor miscalculation sends the friendly asteroid flying straight into us, which probably wouldn’t be so healthy for the planet. And this is all assuming we survive long enough to give it a try.
If we manage to avoid destroying ourselves with global warming there’s always the fact that in around a billion years time the temperatures will have risen so much anyway that the oceans boil away and all water is eventually lost into space. But even though it will be a burning-hot, bone-dry ball of rock, it is our duty to preserve our planet for future generations. If you’re looking for funding for your asteroid-harnessing project you might want to try the UK’s National Trust: preserving special places “For Ever, For Everyone”.
More from Null to help you prepare for The End:
More immediate problems:
- Saving the Earth from Global Warming
Advantages of increased solar winds:
- Sailing through Space
Preemptive strike (Spoof):
- Get rid of the sun (before it gets rid of us)
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