The evolutionary process of the Sun will turn Earth into a dead wasteland in about 1.3 billion years.
As the aging Sun at the center of the solar system progresses through its life cycle, it will eventually engulf Earth. Scientists predict that the Sun has a few billion years left, but life on Earth will come to an end much sooner. Earth will become uninhabitable for most organisms in approximately 1.3 billion years due to the Sun’s natural evolutionary process. Humans could easily push themselves and countless other species to the brink of extinction within the next few centuries if the current rate of climate change is not curbed, according to Live Science.
The Sun will engulf Earth in the future. (Photo: Independent).
“Earth has about 4.5 billion years left before the Sun becomes a red giant and subsequently engulfs the planet,” said Ravi Kopparapu, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The red giant forms in the final stages of its evolution when the star exhausts its hydrogen fuel for nuclear fusion and begins to die, according to the European Space Agency.
Once the nuclear fusion process ceases, gravitational forces will take effect. The helium core will begin to collapse under the influence of gravity, causing temperatures to rise. This surge in temperature will significantly expand the outer plasma layer of the Sun. The Sun will swell to at least the size of Earth’s orbit. However, Earth will certainly not survive for 4.5 billion years.
There is no need to wait for the outer layer of the Sun to reach Earth; the planet will experience extreme temperatures long before the Sun completes its transformation into a red giant. As the dying process of the Sun increases temperatures, the oceans will evaporate, followed by the disappearance of the atmosphere, and ultimately, the tidal forces from the Sun’s gravity will tear Earth apart.
In about 1.3 billion years from now, humans will no longer be able to survive naturally on Earth due to prolonged hot and humid conditions. In about two billion years, the oceans may evaporate as the Sun’s brightness increases by nearly 20% compared to today, according to Kopparapu. Some forms of life may persist at this time, such as extremophiles near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, but not humans.
Wet bulb temperature (an empirical index that reflects the thermal stress an individual is exposed to), combined with temperature, humidity, wind speed, solar angle, and cloud cover, in which humans cannot cool down by sweating, may soon become a regular occurrence. Initially, the wet bulb temperature threshold for humans is predicted to be around 35 degrees Celsius, but recent studies suggest that even 30 degrees Celsius could be lethal.
Some places on Earth have already experienced wet bulb temperatures exceeding 32 degrees Celsius on several occasions. Climate models predict that 35 degrees Celsius will become commonplace in regions like the Middle East by the end of this century. At that temperature, animals will be overheated. Essentially, the greenhouse effect will threaten life and society on Earth before the Sun dies.
