What will happen to the Sun in 5 billion years and what fate awaits the planets of our solar system and specifically the Earth? To answer this question, a group of astronomers from Belgium turned their gaze to the distant star L2 Poppa, located 208 light years away from us and capable of telling us about the future fate of the Sun after it turns into a red giant.
A group of astronomers from the Belgian Catholic University of Leuven are investigating a star that 5 billion years ago could have been the twin of our Sun. Scientists are confident that she is quite capable of telling us about the future of our solar system. And the future, I must say, looks very gloomy.
“We found that L2 Korma is about 10 billion years old,” says team member Ward Homan.
“Five billion years ago, this star was an almost perfect twin of our current Sun, with the same mass. One third of its mass was lost during the evolution of the star. In the very distant future, the same is expected for our Sun."
To conduct this study, astronomers used the Atacama Large [antenna] millimeter-wave array (ALMA) of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. It is one of the most powerful currently existing radio telescopes in the world, which uses 66 radio antennas to operate, forming a virtual telescope with a diameter of 16 kilometers. Armed with such a powerful telescope, the team of researchers carefully studied L2 of Poop and deduced direct links in the fate of this star with our Sun.
“In five billion years, the Sun will grow into a red giant, hundreds of times larger than today. In addition, the star will experience severe mass loss, which will mostly be ejected along with the solar wind,”says Lin Deqing, another member of the study group.
“The end product of its evolution, which will appear in about 7 billion years, will be a tiny white dwarf star. It will be about the size of the Earth, but much heavier. Just one teaspoon of this white dwarf material will weigh about 5 tons."
We all understand perfectly well that the Sun will die sooner or later, but this is actually the first time that scientists have been able to look through a telescope and see how our star will actually look like by the last moment of its shining glory. In addition, no less interesting for scientists in their study was the desire to answer the question of what will happen to the planets of the solar system and, of course, our native Earth.
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In short: no one knows exactly what will happen to the planet itself, but what will happen will definitely be the end both for us and for all life on Earth.
“The fate of the Earth is not completely clear,” says Decin.
“We understand that our Sun will become larger and brighter, therefore, most likely, it will destroy absolutely all life forms on the planet. However, we do not know if Earth's solid core will survive the red giant phase and will continue to wrap around the white dwarf.”
However, scientists firmly believe that planets such as Mercury and Venus will be "eaten up" by an enlarged star, which will leave no trace of them. In order to understand what exactly will happen to the Earth, scientists will continue further research and observations.
It is reported that a rocky planet is located around the star L2 Korma at a distance of about 300 million kilometers (which is about twice the distance from the Earth to the Sun). According to the researchers, the L2 Korma system itself looks something like this:
The team of scientists hopes to study this planet in the coming months, because it will help understand what actually could happen to the Earth in 5 billion years.