The Earth is Doomed, learn what happens?

--------- #1415 - The Earth is Doomed?

- Attachments : Helix Planetary Nebula

- The Earth is Doomed. The planet is doomed; it is just a matter of time. The Sun is burning fuel. It will eventually run out. Just like the fossil fuels on Earth, there is a finite amount. And, when it is gone, it’s gone. In the case of the Sun, we will also need an alternative. What a challenge!

- The hydrogen fuel at the core of the Sun is a fusion furnace that produces helium and releases Gamma Ray energy. The Gamma Rays work their way to the surface and are emitted into space as infrared, light, and ultraviolet radiation. When the hydrogen runs out the helium will burn into carbon and the carbon into oxygen. But, that is about it. The Sun is not big enough to have enough gravity to continue the fusion process beyond oxygen. The lights will go out. Well, not with out a light show.

- As the fusion process winds down it does not go out quietly. The Sun will get hotter and hotter. At its peak the Sun will be 2,700 times more luminous than it is today. The flood of ultraviolet radiation hitting the Earth’s atmosphere will evaporate the oceans. The increased water vapor in the atmosphere will create a runaway greenhouse effect turning the Earth into what Venus is today. Life on Earth will end.

- As the helium is building up at the core of the Sun at the age of 12.2 billion years the Sun will expand into a Red Giant star. It will swell to a 110 million mile radius. The Earth is 93 million miles away from the Sun today. The Sun is about 6 million years old today, middle aged. The Sun will be blowing off mass in a Solar Wind which will make it lighter and will allow the planets and asteroids to move out to new orbits. Many of the planets, asteroids, comets will be vaporized in the intense heat. Some will escape into a new accretion disk still orbiting the Sun.

- The Red Giant star will loose ½ its mass in violent solar winds and pulsations. It will stop spinning and a White Dwarf star will be born once the Red Giant dies out. The White Dwarf star at the center of the expansion will be the diameter of the Earth. It will be surrounded by an expanding giant cloud of gas and dust known as Planetary Nebula. You can see many beautiful pictures of Planetary Nebula in the space photography available on the web.

- The White Dwarf will cool and dim like a cosmic carbon ember throughout the Universe’s lifetime. The dusty disk remains surrounding the White Dwarf that no longer shines. The White Dwarf is composed of carbon and oxygen with a thin atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The dust rings are composed of silicate, calcium, and aluminum like fine grains of beach sand.
　
- Stars that are lower mass than the Sun will become Brown Dwarf stars. They are smaller mass about the diameter of Jupiter, but, 10 times the size of the White Dwarf star. Higher mass stars are compressed to smaller diameters.

- Space telescopes have detected these dusty rings around White Dwarf stars. Over 50 have been discovered. And 40 White Dwarf stars have been found in binary systems with a companion Brown Dwarf star.

- The elements in these dusty rings were discovered with spectrographs mounted on the telescopes. They separate the light wavelength by wavelength, the longest wavelengths in the infrared 3400 to 4600 nanometers. The emission lines and absorption lines in these spectrums allow the astronomers to determine the elements that are in the dust debris.

- The dust debris is the rocky remains of former planetary systems. Our planetary system will be one of these in 5 billion years from now. It is just a matter of time. The Earth is doomed. Dust to dust. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.

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(1) Check out the Helix Planetary Nebula, NGC 7293
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707-536-3272, Monday, February 27, 2012