Read this brief account a few years ago in an Astronomy book (Frozen Star). Walking out this lunch time reminded me of the first part.

Have a read if you have 15 mins to spare...

Fire and Ice

[Edited by Nimbus - 7/14/2003 4:11:09 PM]

 

That is very very scarey !!

 

I had a day like that once. But I survived

Wasn't there a "Twilight Zone" or similar epiosde based on this story years ago ?

Cheers

Ian

[Edited by IWatkins - 7/14/2003 4:13:27 PM]

 

A GOOD PIECE OF LITERACY

but don't you agree - we'll have killed ourselves off long before that will happen - either nuked ourselves or killed everything living and ripped every tree up - starving ourselves of oxygen.

apparently we've only 4000 million years left of the suns rays before it burns itself out.

 

Can i go and stay with the author when it all kicks off?

 

The human race wont be here anyway. Evolution....

Some of those "facts" are slightly over indulged. The Sun is not a Supernova candidate, it is not massive enough. It will however go Nova drawing out the process another few years, and end as a white dwarf calmly irradiating the surface of the earth.... nice.

There are some good SciFi books outthere with this stuff in, I even think that the last episode of Babylon5 delved into it...

We will all need to move to Titan anyway.

 

DAC.

That will never happen anyway. The Sun does not have enough mass to turn into a Back Hole. It was just a demonstration of what it could be like if it did right now. The sun is still in it's main sequnce stage of life. Still another 5 billion odd years left in it yet . It will probably turn into a red giant and swallow the inner planets (maybe including earth) before settling down...

 

beat ya

 

Still a terrifying thought though!

Les

 

[morbid mode]

we're all getting closer everyday anyway...

[/morbid mode]

 

Dan B,

As stated, it's not based on "facts" as such, more a demonstration piece.
In fact the sun has enough mass to go nova either. I think it needs to have about 3 x the current mass for that. It will go through it's red giant phase, then after losing it's outer layers in a planerty nebula, settle down into a white dwarf before finally ending as a cold black drawf.


Interesting fact 1.

The sun loses 4 million tones of mass every second in it's fusion reactions to produce light.

 

 

I wonder what the likely hood of a terrestrial planet orbiting a supernova canditate in the habitable zone is?

 

Good read, very scary! I can just picture fuel trucks being hijacked at gunpoint!

Yes, I agree there will probably be no human race around when this happens but it doesn't stop it from being a great story.

Rich

 

Anyway, if you even survive that lot you still have to face the fact that every proton in the universe will decay in X number of years (where X is rather large).

One minute they will be there, the next there will be no protons and they are quite important in holding "things" together.

Anyway before that we have to face the collapse of the Gulf Stream, global warming, comet/large rock impact etc.

Cheery thoughts

Ian



[Edited by IWatkins - 7/14/2003 5:04:28 PM]

 

naaah there will still be billions of cockroaches and Joan Collins

 

What's the Gulf Stream one Ian?

 

I'm guessing he means where it moves from it's current postion where it's bringing warm water and air to our green shores, and we end up with freezing winteres and cool summers like the rest of the world at 52 degrees north lat...

[Edited by Nimbus - 7/14/2003 5:22:20 PM]

 

Yep, basically.

You end with a very small or non-existant Gulf Stream so you end up with 52 degrees N weather. That on it's own isn't too bad but then you have to think of its effect on agriculture. Of course, not just the UK all of NW Europe gets a warming influence from the Gulf Stream.

Cheers

Ian