Could we exist on earth under a red giant star?
About five billion years from now, the sun’s usual source
of nuclear energy will be depleted. It will begin to expand and cool
significantly, becoming a ‘red giant’. Its outer layers will be thrown off into
space. As the sun loses mass, its gravitational pull will weaken and the
planets’ orbit will widen. We know that mercury and venus will not be able to
outrun the expanding sun, and will be engulfed and incinerated.
Earth may just outrun the swelling red giant but its
proximity, and the resulting rise in temperature, will probably destroy all life
on Earth, and possibly the planet itself. However, there’s no reason that life
could not survive on another planet (or moon) sufficiently far out from the
sun, as long as it lies within the sun’s expanded ‘habitable zone’. Life could
also survive on suitably hospitable planets around other Red Giants.
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