Quote:
Originally Posted by JackieRose
If anyone has been keeping up with space . com and the solar flares, there has been ALOT of activity going on with the sun the last 2 months. It's actually pretty scary to thing that that big ball of fire could ACTUALLY explode....But does one actually believe that or do you just go about your day as if nothing around the world and universe is not going on.
I've for one have been keeping a close eye on things pretty closely, call me a science freak or whatnot but for me it's pretty damn interesting.
|
If you mean go supernova, then it's never going to happen because our sun lacks the mass. Instead, it will nova - meaning that it will expand several times it's current size before collapsing back in upon itself. As it expands it will exert less gravitational pull, so it is possible that the Earth will drift out in a larger orbit and not be engulfed, though that is a possibility. However, that is all moot as it isn't going to happen for another 5 billion years (so, we're about halfway there when you consider that the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago), and as the sun's thermal output is rising at about 10% every one billion years in another billion years life won't be able to exist on this planet anyway.
In the meantime, however, we might be subject to particularly rough solar flare and CME activity. While there is some speculation that it was similar events in the past that has had numerous effects on the moon (radioactive surface, melting rocks, creating a 'glaze' on the surface, etc), the moon does not have the benefit of a magnetic field as does the Earth, and it is that field that will protect us from even the worst flare from being a life-threatening event. Instead, what we will have to contend with is a possible catastrophic failure of modern communications and our power grid, from which it could possibly take a decade to fully recover.
I'm a science freak, too.