The Bright Side Of The Extinction Of Planet Earth
Throughout the centuries, people who have believed that the world would end could never seem to make up their minds
. At many times, whenever the Sun or the moon disappeared doomsayers held it as the beginning of the end. At one point, on July 4, 1054, the skies of the Earth blazed fiery bright when the Crab Nebula shattered into a supernova. For two years, as recorded, the stellar explosion was so intense that it could be seen with the naked eye even during the day. Many Europeans wailed then that God's Judgment had arrived.
In today's astronomy, it is accepted that there will come a stage in the course of cosmic events when our Sun, the very center of our Solar System, will have increasingly grown large enough to gobble up all the three "inner" planets orbiting it. And as if by some serious joke, not only is the Earth one of them, but the menace of this devouring ball of gas and fire will spare Mars and the planets farther behind after it finishes off with the Earth.
Astronomy calls this stellar development as the "red giant" phenomenon, and it is true to almost all the suns and stars throughout the universe, except for dwarf stars. As the term suggests, not only does the star grow bigger, but also its color makes a transition from yellow to red. Our Sun, therefore, being a medium-sized star at this juncture, is said to grow into a gigantic red one in about 5 billion years, when its radius increase to at least two hundred times from its current value.
Presently, the Sun has a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers, and a circumference of 4.4 million kilometers. These dimensions are already equivalent to 109 Earths fitted side by side. Its total mass of 1.9891 X 1030 kilograms equals around 333,000 Earths. And its volume, 1.4 X 1027 could accommodate 1.3 million Earths. Now imagine these dimensions overblown two hundred times. Too bad there is only one Earth when the end comes, but it will be in good company with Mercury and Venus.
There is, however, a "but." Though there will be no hope for the Earth to be spared, our planet will have the opportunity to fight for its right to exist. According to a 2008 study, it may be possible for the Earth's orbit to stretch wider than it is today, enabling our blue-and-white home to hover pass the scorching power of the growing Sun and keep itself from being engulfed. Unfortunately, this widening of the Earth's orbit will not be permanent and it will fall back into an inferior spread, thus eventually feeding it to the Sun. Too bad. Then the Sun goes on to achieve its fullest size, its biggest yet.
By estimate, the Sun grows an inch every year. In about a billion years, Earth's biosphere will have been irretrievably fried. There will still be an atmosphere enveloping the Earth during that time, but it would by then have looked like Venus'. But what does it matter? Most of this atmosphere will have dissolved in the burning solar heat after another billion years.
The process of life and death in the universe is not as drastic as we on Earth experience it. Rather than life on Earth ending in one big bang, it may be that life will merely dwindle until it completely disappears. And before the Earth says its final farewell to the universe, what was once a vibrant blue-and-white sphere, will by then look like a desiccated glob of molten rock.
by: Brian Jones
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