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Astronomers Say Dying Sun Will Engulf Earth
iamlucky13 writes "A minor academic debate among astronomers is the final fate of the earth. As the sun ages and enters the red giant stage of its life, it will heat up, making the earth inhospitable. It will also expand, driven by helium fusion so that its outer layers reach past the earth's current orbit. Previously it had been believed that the sun would lose enough mass to allow earth to escape to a more distant orbit, lifeless but intact. However, new calculations, which take into account tidal forces and drag from mass shed by the sun, suggest that the earth will have sufficiently slowed in that time to be dragged down to its utter destruction in 7.6 billion years. "
Accelerate Earth to put it into a wider orbit. This will solve Global Warming and the Earth being swallowed all in one.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In 7.6 bln years time frame there is a 99.9 probability of a massive object hitting Earth and melting the outermost solid shell.
Where do you get these numbers? They appear suspect. We've gone more than half-a-billion years with *no* impact strong enough to wipe out the primary phyla of animals. That would suggest that mega-impacts are not near as likely as you say.
True, we may be in for some nasty human-ending impacts though, but not necessarily "outer shell melting", at least not the entire shell.
Table-ized A.I.