Aubrey de Grey and, for that matter, anyone else who plans to live forever, is probably feeling very relieved today. Astronomers announced that they have observed a planet that survived the fiery ballooning of its local star. This outcome is inevitable: Eventually, even our Sun is going to run out of hydrogen and blow up to 100 times its present size, transforming into what's known as a red giant. As a result, scientists figured that Earth has only about 5 billion years left.
Now, though, it appears that our lovely little planet could survive the Sun's transformation. That said, it probably wouldn't be a very nice place to live. Any of our kind who are still around at that point will probably have moved to another locale.—Gregory Mone
(Image credit: ESA)
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Share links with friends, comment on stories and more
Inside NASA's astronaut bootcamp and the grueling new training regimen for deep space. Plus, ten young geniuses shaking up science today, one writer's quest to analyze every man-made chemical in her body and more.
Check out the issue's full contents online here
That would almost make for a good movie.
so would the novel ender's game, but as anyone who has been following that, its not going to happen. Science fiction has a large fan base, but not large enough to make a mainstream movie, sadly.
"Any of our kind who are still around at that point..."
5 billion years? I'm sure we would not recognize "any of our kind" by that time, it will be something completely different I bet.
"Any of our kind who are still around at that point..."
5 billion years? I'm sure we would not recognize "any of our kind" by that time, it will be something completely different I bet.