Earth Is Doomed!

Forget about global warming, the ice ages, asteroids or any other impending disaster waiting to happen. Earth will burn! Literally! Astronomers approximate the age of the Sun to a rough 5 billion years and is mostly believed that it will continue to burn hydrogen at least as much time before
becoming too unstable to maintain its current form. Our planet, on the other hand, will probably be swallowed by the Sun in 7.6 billion years, rendering it out of existence.

It may seem like an extremely long time before these events will take place, but the fact is that it's not, considering that probabilistic calculations suggest that the human race will go extinct in less than a billion years, along with all the life forms currently living on the surface of our planet. Meanwhile, planetary astronomers are still trying to figure out whether the Earth will drift far enough from the Sun so that it will escape final destruction or not.

A new model proposed by astronomer Robert Smith from Britain's University of Sussex, assisted by Klaus-Peter Schroeder from the University of Guanajuato, Mexico, point out that, in about a billion years, our planet will no longer have an atmosphere, water and the friendly to life temperatures we have today. As the Sun advances into its life, it will become ever hotter, due to the extreme temperatures required to burn elements heavier than hydrogen.

There may be more than 150 million kilometers between the Sun and the Earth, however these changes have direct effect upon the weather of our planet. The Earth will become dryer, hotter, impossible to live on. And like that wouldn't have been enough, a secondary effect related to the Sun's aging will then take place. After losing control over the gravitational and nuclear reaction forces that kept it stable for most of its life, the Sun will finally expand into a red giant which will most likely engulf the inner planets.

Let's say that we've evolved far enough to move to another body in the solar system or to another star, why not, we may escape the havoc, however the Earth will not. Or will it? Planetary astronomers are not sure yet, but there is a chance that at least Earth and its sister planet, Mars could drift far enough not to be swallowed by the expanding Sun. During the final stages of the Sun's life, it will start to eject matter from the upper layers, in an effort to maintain stability. Less mass, means less gravity, thus the distance between our star and the planet could drastically increase.

One problem though. This model does not take into account the tidal forces that will act on our planet in the future. Tidal forces caused by gravitational pull between the two massive bodies, could actually slow the orbital speed of the Earth so severely, that our planet, instead of drifting away from the Sun, would spiral towards the inner regions of the solar system and fall into the Sun.

Scientists are already thinking solutions. Assuming that there still is intelligent life on Earth by that time, Earth could be pushed towards the outer regions of the solar system with the help of a gravitational key hole provided by the passing of a large asteroid through the vicinity of our planet. No, it is not the scenario of a science fiction movie, this is pure science. We, as an intelligent life form, will probably live long enough to view the end of our solar system, if we play it safe, the fact is that the chances are stacked against us. 99 percent of all the life forms that lived on the surface of the Earth, no longer exist!

Source - Softpedia