boom!

[vanilla]

So when is the Sun supposed to supernova and explode or expand or disintegrate?
And what kind of sunscreen will we need?spf 1,000?(sorry)

[DAVEW0071]

Around lunch time on Tuesday, I think.

Gotta check my daytimer. I'll get back to ya.

[douglips]

The sun should last another 4 billion years or so. I can't find a decent site to link to, but I've seen total life span estimates for Sol-type stars of 9 billion years, and we are about 5 billion years into it.

[DAVEW0071]

Why'd you have to go and post a serious answer? We coulda had a lot of fun with this one.

sheesh

[Chronos]

The sunscreen you'd need would be about SPF 1,000,000 to bring it down to about the same levels as current (order of magnitude estimate).

[DAVEW0071]

The sunscreen you'd need would be about SPF 1,000,000 to bring it down to about the same levels as current (order of magnitude estimate).

Maybe, but you'd only need it for what? Nine minutes?

[Chronos]

More like several months-- That's how long supernovae stay at significant brightness. The original bang is rather quick, but it creates a large amount of various radioactive substances, which release their energy over a longer period. If I remember correctly, the primary one, for those timescales, is an isotope of nickel.

[vanilla]

Okay then.
SO what would happen if 2 planets ran into each other?

[dtilque]

Okay then.
SO what would happen if 2 planets ran into each other?

The insurance adjusters have to work overtime...

[Wood Thrush]

vanilla wrote:

Okay then.
SO what would happen if 2 planets ran into each other?


I'd imagine it would depend on the size and composition of the two.

[pkbites]

The sun is going to explode in just 4 billion years? :eek:
My God, I've wasted my life. All the things I didn't get done. Now I'll never get to them because the sun is going to explode!

[vanilla]

Wood: Uranus and Neptune.

[DAVEW0071]

Wood: Uranus and Neptune.

Heh heh. You said "wood." Heh heh. You said "anus." Heh heh.

[Myron Van Horowitzski]

The sun won't explode (it's not that type of star), but it will expand and then fizzle out.

We're looking at about six billion years to the red giant stage. At that point the sun will balloon out the orbit of Venus, and we'll all be toasted to a crisp, fried in whatever sunscreen we have by then.

[dtilque]

But before it reaches the red giant stage, the sun will heat up enough to bake us to a crisp. And that's not counting the greenhouse effect1. Say, 1 to 1.5 billion years from now.

1We could probably put it off for a while by creating an anti-greenhouse effect. That is by reducing the CO2 levels to lower than they were before the industrial revolution. There is some evidence that this did happen more than a billion years ago and most of the water on earth froze.

[Phobos]

The sun will not blow up. About 5(?) billion years from now, it will swell to a red giant (possibly engulfing the Earth, but almost certainly Mercury and Venus) and then contract down to a white dwarf. It will probably form a nice "planetary nebula". The sun would need to be more massive for it to explode. Of course, the sun will burn hotter as it ages, and from what I've read, it may be too hot for most life on Earth in 500 million years.


colliding planets? supposedly a Mars size planet collided with the Earth 4 to 4.5 billion years ago which resulted in the formation of the Moon. a large planet may have knocked Uranus on it's side (sound like a joke :)).

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

But "Boom!" is the title for one of the rarest and most sough-after films of all time, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and based on the Tennessee Williams play "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore."

If ANYONE ever comes across this film--which has never been released to video--please let me know. I'll gladly pay thru the noze for this masterpiece.

[HorseloverFat]

We could avoid the whole issue by living deep underground with a clean and plentiful energy source.

As to sunscreen try that blue stuff from the spoof ads in Robocop.

[DrMatrix]

There is the story of the professor who says to his class, "The sun will expand into a red giant and engulf the earth in four and one half billion years." A hand goes up in the back. The professor says, "Yes." The student says, "Excuse me, but how long before this happens?". The professor says "Four and one half billion years." The student says, "That's a relief. I thought you said four and one half millionyears."

[Phobos]

We could avoid the whole issue by living deep underground with a clean and plentiful energy source.


We'll have to sequestor all the water before it breaks down and escapes to space. And figure out a way to sustain agriculture without sunlight.

Hopefully, we'll be colonizing other worlds by then. :)