• Question: When the sun explodes is there a way to survive

    Asked by Calobster159 to Julian, Hugh, Jane, Helen, Heather on 11 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by *Samara*, 425spaa38, sevvalA, EthanSteathen.
    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Yes – move to another one! We have a few billion years, so we ought to be able to sort that out!
      Someone invent a warp drive!!

      Some of the outer planets might survive, but none of them would make a very good place to live – they’re mostly gas!

    • Photo: Jane MacArthur

      Jane MacArthur answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      The Earth is likely to be uninhabitable within 1-2 billion years, as the increasing heat from the Sun will give rise to a runaway greenhouse effect and plate tectonics will eventually cease, the magnetic dipole may weaken and then Earth is likely to lose a lot of its atmosphere, though events before that could wipe out life (magnetic pole reversal, asteroid impact etc).

      Some of the moons of the outer planets might become more inhabitable as the Sun’s heat increases but there will be lots of challenges in order to get there and build viable colonies.

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Our Sun is really going to explode in the same way that other stars go supernova, it will just eventually come to the end of its life on the ‘main sequence’, to become what we call a Red Giant. The Sun will get much bigger and cool as it’s no longer able to fuse Hydrogen atoms together to make Helium (the main nuclear reaction that makes the sun ‘shine’).
      Although as Jane said, it will become much hotter before this happens, and we start having all kind of other problems! Don’t worry, we have billions of years to start looking for a new home 😉

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