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The End Not As Near As We Thought

Posted by michael on from the my-only-friend-the-end dept.

HiyaPower writes: "According to recent calculations cited by this article in TheAge, the calculations that the sun would expand to a red giant and engulf the earth are wrong. It will expand, but due to the loss of solar mass over time due to the conversion of mass into energy, the earth will spiral enough further away thus avoiding the fate of Venus and Mercury. Personally I find this a great relief, I had some long term plans that I had been putting off..."

2 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not to be cynical, but... by glwillia · · Score: 4, Informative

    This matters why? I mean, sure, they have to update the textbooks, but why is this worth researching, let alone newsworthy? Can this problem help us solve other problems that need to be solved?

    Any astrophysicists mind?


    Well, as a budding astrophysicist (undergrad physics/astronomy major at UofA), planetary/stellar evolution is quite an important area of research (in fact, a whole branch of astronomy focuses on this. It's even a separate degree program at some schools--planetary science). Also, forgetting to account for the radiation of energy and the resultant decrease in mass seems to be a fairly major oversight, in violation of some of the most basic concepts of orbital motion, such as the fact that the downward force due to gravity (and, hence, responsible for the behavior of orbits) is proportional to the mass of the central object and inversely proportional to the radius squared. Decrease the mass, and the force decreases, resulting in a change in the dynamics of Earth's movement, and increasing the perihelion and aphelion.

    This is worth researching because Earth and its fate is somewhat important to us, for reasons that should be obvious. This will help us model the evolution of the solar system up to the white-dwarf stage, one which will be reached by most main-sequence stars (we think).

  2. Re:I wouldn't put too much hope in this by pmc · · Score: 5, Informative

    When the polar ice caps melt, the ocean level does not rise. Why? because as ice they displace the same amount of space as they would if they were water. It is achimedes' principle.

    Oft stated, but actually wrong (even ignoring the fact that some polar ice is on land). When the ice melts it melts for a reason - the sea has warmed up. And when the sea warms it will expand. See this Nature Abstract or even from USA Today