With only about 5 billion years left on the Sun s lifespan, could red dwarfs be the new home for hum

Mondo Science Updated on 2024-01-31

The sun is actually not the most ideal energy for the Earth** because its lifespan is too short. Over a period of about 1 billion to 2 billion years, the sun will gradually expand and heat up, and the earth will also warm as it expands, and the temperature will begin to rise until a certain tipping point is reached, and the Earth's environment will no longer be suitable for human habitation. If humanity had existed at that time, they would have faced two outcomes.

First of all, humans achieved interstellar migration and discovered new planets with life. The second is that they will follow the same trend as most species on Earth, with extinction becoming insignificant dust in the evolution of the universe. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will come to the end of its life and become a white dwarf. The sun in the white dwarf phase can no longer provide energy for the solar system, and the pattern of the entire solar system will change dramatically. The Earth no longer exists, but there are countless stars in the entire universe that have different lifespans due to their different masses.

Our Sun is a yellow dwarf star with a lifespan of about 10 billion years, so its orbit is close to the Sun. The planets' energies** are only 10 billion years at most, including the early Sun and the late Red Giant Sun. Life in the Earth's ecosystems also depends on the steady energy of the sun. In about 1 billion to 2 billion years, the temperature of the Sun will increase significantly, and the amount of energy radiating to the Earth will also increase. As a result, the temperature of the planet will also rise, making it no longer suitable for survival. In other words, humanity would have to flee the solar system in about 1 billion to 2 billion years to find a new planet with life.

In space, there are stars larger than the Sun, and their lifespans are only about 1 billion years. If there is a living planet around them, the lifespan of this living planet will be quite short. In fact, throughout the universe, there is one kind of star that is well suited for the development of life. It is a red dwarf star, its surface temperature is low, its color is reddish, and its mass is no more than half the mass of the Sun. In our galaxy, 70% of the stars are red dwarfs, and the closest stars to us are red dwarfs. So why are red dwarfs said to be the most powerful stars of mankind?Hope in **?

This is because red dwarfs are relatively stable and long-lived, and unlike the cores of yellow dwarfs and blue giants, nuclear fusion inside red dwarfs is relatively mild, and it is massive enough to initiate nuclear fusion within it. So, while it has a much smaller mass than stars such as the Sun and Vega, it can burn extremely and can last from tens of billions to trillions of years. Our current universe is only about 13.8 billion years old. Thus, among the many stars in the universe, the Sun has entered the middle age stage and will die in about another 5 billion years. But red dwarfs in the universe, like humans in infancy, still have a long way to go.

Such a long lifespan allows red dwarfs to provide a planet with stable energy and environment for a long time, and life on this planet can have a longer time to reproduce, obtaining a relatively long and stable period of life development. Therefore, in the entire universe, red dwarfs are the most suitable energy for planetary life to flourish**. According to the current technology of mankind, 1 billion years is enough time for mankind to find another living planet. In 1 billion years, humanity may be extinct not because of the sun, but because of itself. As for how long human beings can reproduce, whether they can follow the universe until the day when the universe is destroyed, our generation will never know.

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