• Question: What will destroy the Earth first, us or the Sun?

    Asked by lcfcjackjohn to Paul on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Well we almost certainly can’t destroy the Earth (not the big solid planet) – but we might destroy the biosphere, which is the fragile outer layer in which we live (so the atmosphere and oceans). We have polluted the water and the air, and even the surface of the land – but that doesn’t harm the solid ball of rock and metal. So the worst we can probably do is make Earth uninhabitable, and kill off all life…

      The Sun will start to die in about 4 billion years – it will start to swell up and become a Red Giant, when it’s hydrogen fuel starts to run out in the core. As that happens, it will engulf Mercury then Venus, but probably not get out as far as the Earth’s orbit. But all life on Earth will be gone, as the planet will heat up and the oceans will boil away, and then the atmosphere.

      Maybe humans will then be living on Mars, or have travelled to other planets around other stars.

      But the rocky Earth will probably survive pretty much forever.

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