Is there any chance to still live on planet earth when the sun becomes a red giants?

Question

Can we say -now- that the chance of us surviving on earth after the red giant comes, like is their any chance the sun won't become a red giant in about 5 billion years? i feel bad when i think about the sun becoming a red giant? any good comments (this is a real question, so pls give serious answers also)

like how many % will the chance be that the Sun doesn't become a red giant, can we do anything about this? do we really need to find a new planet?

i' m just asking this out of curiosity btw

Answer 1

The last living creatures on this planet by then will be roaches....One big roach infested planet!!!!!!

Answer 2

The chances that the Sun will NOT become a red giant are very close to 0%.

It is not exactly 0% because the red giant phase of the Sun should not occur for another 5 to 6 billion years.

Meanwhile (3 to 4 billion years) our Galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will collide. Because of the distances between the individual stars, actual collisions will be extremely rare. However, the gravity of each galaxy will have a tidal effect on the stars' orbits in the other galaxy.

Some streams of stars will escape their galaxy and form "antennae"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antennae_Galaxies
Others may drop towards one black hole or the other (each galaxy has one at its centre). The probability that the Sun would be part of a stream falling into a black hole is very, very small (but it is not exactly 0); therefore, there is a tiny chance that the Sun (along with Earth) could be destroyed a few billion years before reaching its red giant phase.

Let us assume that the Sun will reach its red giant phase. It will bloat out quite a bit. It could reach as far as our present orbit. If Earth finds itself inside the bloated, giant sun, it will not survive very long (and we would not survive at all). However, let's remember that this will be 5 billion years from now. In the meantime, the Sun is emitting light and energy.
E = mc^2
The energy must come from mass.
As the Sun loses mass, our orbit will get larger. Maybe, just maybe, by the time old Sol bloats out, our orbit will be large enough to avoid being fried.

Plus, we will have a few billion years to prepare. We may have moved out to another world by then.

Answer 3

Earth will be uninhabitable long before the sun reaches that stage. In about 1.2 billion years it will have expanded some degree and heated up. By that time, the Earth will have lost any record that it ever held a biosphere. Even 700 million years from now, the Earth will be considerably warmer than now, and may well be covered in ocean and wet jungle.

Think of how much different species have evolved just in a few million years. We're taking about hundreds of times longer than that. If our line continues, we may well have become something else. There are also ways of changing the Earth's orbit to take it further out, which need not start for millions of years. The trouble with that is that the sun will start long-term pulsations, meaning it's habitable zone will keep changing.

As the first generation of interstellar craft in a few hundred years may be hollowed-out asteroids carrying their own little societies inside, perhaps the citizens of Earth in a billion years or so will move underground and head for a sun-like star in the earlier stages of evolution.

And no, nothing will prevent it.

Answer 4

Life on earth will probably have been extinct for 2 to 3BY by the time the sun expands. This is due to the brightening of the sun and a silicate-co2 cycle. Theoretically it is possible to move the earth outward, using the gravitational attraction of a directed asteroid. So the life span of the earth could be extended somewhat if our descendants are willing to do some good engineering and take a big risk. The risk is that if you're not careful with the comets orbit, it could strike the earth and kill everything all at once. Unfortunately once the red giant stage ends, there is absolutely no where in the solar system where our descendants could hide.

Answer 5

The sun WILL become a red giant. Nothing is going to stop that. But life will have seized in the planet a long time before that.

You don't have to think about these processes as catastrophic. It will be a very gradual decline of life forms. The last inhabitants of the planet will have no nervous systems to feel pain.

Nothing to feel bad about, really.

All the matter the sun gives back to the universe will be dispersed and eventually power other stars and lead to the formation of new solar systems.

You just have to get used to the idea that the universe has no ultimate purpose. It just is. It's laws were not made to put us on eternal life-support. Instead, the universe, like a living body, matures and then ages. Right now it is in its infancy and probably as pretty as it ever will be. We are the seeds germinating in the spring. Many more flowers will come after us. And then, the universe will age and eventually it will die. That is the course of life. On all scales.

The sun's red giant phase is but a small event in all of this. You are just a small event in the solar system. Once you stop overestimating your importance you can just lean back and enjoy the show. And what a wonderful, humorous show it is!

Relax. Have fun. There is nothing more to it. But nothing less, either.

:-)

Answer 6

Absolutely not, unless we have developed a way to survive surface temperatures high enough to turn the surface of the Earth into an ocean of lava. Even when helium fusion begins and the Sun shrinks and dramatically decreases in luminosity, the surface temperature will still be in excess of 600 or 700 degrees Celsius, which is more than 1,300 degree Fahrenheit. As if the inferno like temperatures are not bad enough, the Earth would have no atmosphere or oceans as well. Earth will become a Hell planet like Venus, with no possibility of supporting life, at least life as we would understand it. Then when the helium in the core is gone and the Sun expands again into a red giant, Earth may find itself in the Sun's outer envelope. If that does happen, drag will cause the Earth to spiral inwards into the Sun's deep interior, vaporizing it.

Answer 7

Humanity might survive on Earth if we went underground and built self-sustaining artificial habitats. The surface would certainly no longer be habitable though.

But the sun won't become a red giant for 5 billion years. Who knows what we'll be capable of then. Maybe by that time we'll have the technology to remove helium from its core and extend its lifespan. And who know how far we'll have spread into the rest of the universe by then.

Answer 8

This won't happened until 2 billion years from now, by that time all kinds of technological advances by human beings will have occurred. With this in mind, infinite possibilities will assure that the Sun's state might be altered, the Earth moved, or that we'll move to other planets, solar systems, and eventually, out to other galaxies.

The future isn't that bleak, unless we destroy ourselves. :)

Answer 9

No, we'll literally be slow cooked.
The sun will take some time to expand and as it does our days will get hotter and eventually there will be no water, and our flesh will be scorched off. Sounds nasty, but like you said it'll happen in about 5 billion years.

There is a 100% chance the sun will become a red giant, because it's solar mass is just the right size to do so.

Answer 10

The sunlight will amplify out, and it rather is outer rim will attain Jupiter. each thing in it rather is course would be destroyed. and it will finally develop right into a black hollow. Our planet, and image voltaic gadget won't likely exist like it does now. edit- HAHA quite? why dont you attempt calling the history channel and telling them that they are incorrect, beacuse thats the place i've got been given this concepts from.

Answer 11

If we haven't developed the technology to move into space in another 4 billion years we deserve to be swallowed by a red giant anyway. Do you realize your ancestors will have to say "great great great great..." another 200 million times before they can refer to you?