Humans on earth are fighting with dangers like climate change, but five million years down the lane all this will not matter. Roughly 4.6 billion years ago the life cycle of the sun began, and in a rough estimate of 4.5 to 5.5 billion years the sun will start depleting its supply of hydrogen and helium and will enter a phase known as Red Giant Branch (RGB) where it will grow and expand more than its current size and might end up consuming Earth.
Everything and everyone on the surface of the Earth will die. Possibly only one thing which might survive this inferno will be the rocky core of our planet, which might orbit around the dead and cold remains of the sun.
Later when the sun reaches its end, it is believed that its outer layers will blow. And in the end, it will turn into a White Dwarf. Till now astronomers were not clear on how this will take place, and whether or not the sun will end up as a Planetary Nebula. However, a team of international astronomers proved that the Sun will end its life cycle by turning into an enormous ring of luminous interstellar gas and dust which is known as planetary Nebula.
Researchers had a sneak peek of our inescapable fate by looking at L2 Puppis, which was also a star five years billion years ago and was likely to like the Sun. According to a professor named Albert Ailjsta when a death of the star occurs, it ejects mass of gas and dust which is known as its envelope into space. The mass of the envelope can be as much as the half of the star’s mass. This uncovers the core of the star, which by this point within the star’s life is running in the end which will turn of before dying finally.
It is at exactly that point the hot center makes the ejected envelope sparkle splendidly for around 10,000 years – a short period in astronomy. This is the thing that makes the planetary cloud visible.
“When a star dies it ejects a mass of gas and dust—known as its envelope—into space. The envelope can be as much as half the star’s mass. This reveals the star’s core, which by this point in the star’s life is running out of fuel, eventually turning off and before finally dying,” said Professor Albert Zijlstra from the University of Manchester.
Prof. Albert Zijlstra at the University of Manchester, who was among the international group of researchers, said that when the stars die they expel a huge mass of dust and gas into space, which is called its envelope. The Professor continued to say that the envelope could measure near about half of the mass of the original star. Further, he said that this unveils the core of the star, which at this scenario in the life of the star is gradually getting exhausted before dying off finally. Zijlstra further told that it’s only then that the blazing core gets the expelled envelope to shine brilliantly for about ten thousand years. Zijlstra added that this is the reason behind the visibility of “the planetary nebula” and some of them are so brilliant that they could be witnessed from huge distances.
“We found that stars with mass less than 1.1 times the mass of the sun produce fainter nebula, and stars more massive than 3 solar masses brighter nebulae, but for the rest the predicted brightness is very close to what had been observed. Problem solved, after 25 years!,” said Professor Zijlstra.
Previous studies have revealed that our sun will explode before death. Stars are enormous masses of hydrogen, and when they burn through their resources, they contract and become remarkably hot. The outer layer of the star then extends when it comes in contact with the burning central core, describing why stars grow as they age into red giants. The expansion process continues resulting in it becoming hundreds of time its original size, but with a thinner density.
When the ageing process kicks in, the ‘convection cells’ on the surface of a star are changed. These are necessarily stores of liquid held in place by the movement of heat. By definition of convection, as the hot fluid moves towards the centre of each spot, cooling fluid moves down from the edges, thus suspending the liquid in bubbles on the surface.
With the sun emitting its outer layers over tens of thousands of years, creating a nebula, the liquid on Earth, especially in the form of oceans will boil, sealing the atmosphere with nitrogen and carbon dioxide. As a consequence, life on Earth will cease to exist even before the solar explosion destroys the entire solar system.
Will there be any individual left on the surface of the earth who will face this?
In 2013, According to a study by University of East Angila Long before the expansion of sun, all life on the surface of the earth will likely be extinct. We assess that the Earth somewhere between 1.75 to 3.25 billion years from now ceases to be livable. After this point earth will be within the Hot Zone of the sun, all the seas will evaporate and we would see a disastrous and terminal extinction of all life.