A team of astronomers from the University of California discovered a distant planetary system that confusingly resembles our predictions about the future of the Earth. A planet the size of our globe orbits a white dwarf, the remnant of a star that once was it resembled our Sun in size. The planet is in an orbit twice as large as the current Earth’s orbit, which may suggest what the fate of our planet will be like in the distant future.
As scientists say, In a few billion years, the Sun will expand to the size of a red giantabsorbing Mercury and Venus, a The Earth will be moved to a more distant orbitas the star loses mass. For this reason, our planet may survive this process, although it will probably be twice as far from the Sun as it is now.
The process of the Sun transforming into a red giant is inevitable. As scientists emphasize, this may happen in about a billion yearswhen our star will begin to lose mass and expand, absorbing its closest planets. Even though the Earth is moving away from the Sun, it will encounter serious problems, including: will lose its oceanswhich will evaporate as a result of the intense greenhouse effect.
After this stage, the Sun will turn into white dwarf – a small but extremely dense remnant of a star. If Earth survives this transformation, it may end its life in a distant orbit, frozen and lifeless. Keming Zhang from the University of California, notes, however, that the fate of the Earth is still uncertain – we do not know whether our planet will definitely avoid being completely absorbed by the red giant.
While the prospect of Earth moving away from the Sun and dying in a distant orbit seems bleak, scientists have suggested alternative scenarios. Keming Zhang emphasizes that as the Sun turns into a red giant, the habitable zone in the solar system will shift to the outer regions, towards the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
Moons of these gas giants, such as Europa, Ganymede or Enceladuscould become “oceanic planets” where water, currently frozen, will melt to form potentially favorable living conditions.
So if humanity survives the coming changes, migrating to these outer moons may prove to be our salvation. The habitable zone in the solar system will not disappear, it will only change its location.
Source: geekweek.interia.pl
