What is the future of the Earth? According to scientists, the sun is estimated to be a hundred times larger than it is today, happening about five billion years forward. The findings use the world's most powerful radio telescope, where international team of astronomers have found an answer to the case of L2 Puppis star. According to them, about five billion years ago the star L2 Puppis position very similar to the Sun today.

The team of astronomers has observed the evolving L2 Puppis star, observations spaced 208 light-years from Earth by using the ALMA radio telescope. According to Professor Leen Decin of KU Leuven Institute of Astronomy, five billion years from now, the sun is expected to grow into a red giant star.

Future Earth Conditions

The data estimates are at least a hundred times larger than the current solar size. The sun will also experience an intense mass loss due to the very strong stellar wind. The final prediction of solar evolution about 7 billion years from now will be a white dwarf star. The sun will look the size of the Earth, but its mass is much heavier. In comparison, one teaspoon of the mass of white dwarfs is about 5 tons.

This metamorphosis data certainly has a dramatic impact on the planets around the solar system. Most significantly, the planet Mercury and Venus will be destroyed by the giant sun. But the condition of the future earth is still uncertain, the sun will be bigger and brighter so it will probably destroy all life forms on the surface of the Earth.

According to scientists, the core of the earth's rock and its surface will turn into a red-hot phase and continue to orbit the sun that has become a white dwarf star.

It is estimated that L2 Puppis is about 10 billion years old, where five billion years ago the star was almost as perfect as the Sun today with the same mass. A third of L2 Puppis's mass disappears during the evolution of stars. And maybe the same thing will happen with the sun in the future. The nearest planet orbiting the star is about 300 million kilometers from L2 Puppis, or twice the distance between the Sun and the Earth. This possibility becomes the basis of scientists as Earth's comparison at the age of five billion years from now.

This new understanding explains the interaction between the planet and the Puppis L2 star, a valuable clue as the sun enters the final evolution and how it impacts the planets in the solar system. Will future earth conditions orbiting or survive in the Sun?

Reference

Will Earth still exist 5 billion years from now? Old star offers sneak preview of the future, 08 Dec 2016, by KU Leuven.ALMA observations of the nearby AGB star L2 Puppis. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2016; 596: A92 DOI: 10.1051 / 0004-6361 / 201629877