End of the World!

[paul.deitch]

Stop, don't switch off, its a genuine question. We know that one day the sun will explode/implode etc. Assuming mankind is still around when this happens, then over what sort of time period does this take place? How long would mankind have to worry?

[Simpo Two]

How a star dies depends on its size. Our sun is Class M so is most likely to gradually expand into a red giant - so we'd have plenty of time to get used to the idea... it might at least get NASA a working budget to colonise somewhere else.

[jmorgan]

4.5 billion years or so? I understand that the sun, whilst expanding out to our vicinity, the suns corona will be very very thin so Earth will be orbiting within the Sun (as it will be by then not as it is now)? Still not healthy for us, might be on Mars by then....

[BMR]

You would think something else would happen by then, asteroid strike, mass disease etc??

[Happy82]

Simpo Two said:

How a star dies depends on its size. Our sun is Class M so is most likely to gradually expand into a red giant - so we'd have plenty of time to get used to the idea... it might at least get NASA a working budget to colonise somewhere else.

I thought our sun was g type?

[Derek Smith]

The world, or at least our ability to survive on it, will probably end when the iron core stops rotating.

[Simpo Two]

Happy82 said:

I thought our sun was g type?

Yep, you're right. Memory fail on my part: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classificatio...