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| | Field Marshal |  |
| | Group: Administrator,
Klikan,
Regulars,
Outsiders
| | Location: Copenhagen | | Joined: 09.06.06 | | Posted on 23-06-2007 08:34 |
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A good read about the future lightshow that is Eta Carinae from Daily Kos:
One of these days, a few billion years from now, the Earth will meet its end. The sun, by that time swollen into a red giant that encompasses the orbits of Mercury and Venus, will continue to expand, filling the sky with crimson light. That future sun will not only be much larger, but also much cooler than the dense yellow star we know, really little more then an expanding red-hot soap bubble around a still furiously burning core. Still, as it grows, Earth's oceans will boil away. For a few centuries or millennia, the Earth will stew beneath the ultimate global warming, as water vapor -- itself a highly-effective greenhouse gas -- traps so much heat that any hope of life surviving on this planet becomes impossible. As the sun comes closer still, Earth will likely spiral gradually away, and may (or may not) escape the Sun's grasp, but if it does so, it will be only a burned out cinder of a world, a sad remnant of a green, life-infused planet. Eventually, the Sun will blow off that outer envelop and collapse to a tiny dwarf star, casting any surviving planets from the oven into the deep freeze.
Sounds bad, huh? But, it is several billion years off yet, so unless you're planning on really testing the limits of Medicare, you're not likely to need that SPF 10,000 sun screen. Good old Sol is a medium sized, main sequence star. In political terms, it's a moderate. In Goldilocks terms, it's not too hot, not too cool. It's just right to live into jolly old age while keeping things in the neighborhood relatively stable.
Not all stars are so friendly... read more at Daily Kos:
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