Nah, we'll have just moved on to new planets by the time the sun explodes. Dr. Who says so.

@mopiece:
if so then this galaxy will also destroyed? It's scary to imagine, though...
I wonder what would happen to other planets. Would they lose their orbit and frozen?

@ashen:
i'm not sure human can do it. Even they manage to create a huge space ship, how about fuel? Reaching to another galaxy is so faaaaar away, lol

Humans last for a billion years? If that happens, the humans will have left the Universe in such a state, that we won't have any more species

@theone: i think you're giving humans far too much credit. In all liklihood, we'd probably meet some other species in the vast universe that will pwn our butts lol.

@shed: our solar system would suffer dramatically at the death of our sun. But the galaxy itself is vast enough that our tiny death probably wouldn't have that much of an impact on the rest. In the large scheme of things, stars are always coming into existence and ending.

@KTC:
I heard that dying star can cause a blackhole. If it's true, then the current planets are in quite danger.
Oh. Just remembered that stars can be reborn and do supernova. Does it have a big matter? Never knew exact, but it'd throw out planet again and new life's beginning. We might be categorised as dinos, no?

@shed: only if the star is big enough. From what I recall, our sun would become a middle size star and eventually become brown dwarf star. Tiny thing. No danger of becoming a blackhole.

But the star expanding is what would 'kill' the earth first rather than the blackhole. Bigger sun = closer to us = a lot warmer temperature = bye bye earth. It would probably be like mars.

I thought Mars was frozen. Wouldn't it become more like Venus or Mercury?

Hmm, I was thinking more about the deserts on mars (i think only ice exist at the poles) but i guess mercury would be a better comparison for what the sun can do to the earth.

Not venus though since I don't think we'll have enough green house gases to have a venus-like environment. If I remember apocalypse scenarios correctly, the sun would burn off all the atmosphere, water, etc. leaving a dry carcass of a planet.

No, it's Neptune and Pluto that are frozen.

As for the black hole thing, I think that's an exploding star. If a star dies, it just darkens and freezes an entire solar system.

No CAAAAT. Only the bigger stars can make black holes. The smaller stars like our sun won't make a black hole.

I know that. I'm just pointing out that a supernova causes a black hole.

BTW, I don't know much about astronomy. If I'm contradicting myself or something, you might want to correct me with a little more detail.

I don't think neptune is frozen. it's one of the gas planets similar to uranus having a very large gas atmosphere, some 'ice' made from water,methane, and ammonia, and rock. It's moons on the other hand definitely are frozen over with ice and the like.

What do we care? Soon we'll find Protean beacons on Mars and we'll learn the secrets of the Element Zero, so who cares? XD


Seriously, we won't be there to see the end of the Sun, or even the planet drying out a bit before, so why would we care?

I care because I find it interesting. I have a morbid curiosity with things like that, and I find stars and planets interesting.

Though, I think right now we should be more worried about how to destroy asteroids or meteors then our sun dieing- that seems like a more pressing threat then the sun. Of course, humans are more likely to destroy themselves then an astrological event is.

Ashen_Eclipse, me too. I also find it fascinating how much of a role Jupiter and Saturn played in protecting the earth from asteroids.

As for mars...
Unfortunately, I doubt we're going to find anything on mars because the sources of profit from mars aren't obvious enough that the people with the big money would spend any of it on that research.
Especially now that NASA is gone.

Wait? What? NASA is gone?

Yeah, Obama started pushing to privatize the space program pretty soon after he took office.

The shuttles are also being retired and the ISS will probably end up getting destroyed.

NASA isn't gone, just the shuttle fleet is getting retired.

However, there was supposed to be a replacement system in place by now, but due to budget cutbacks, it has been severely delayed. So, yes, NASA will still be around, but they might not have anything to launch for a while.

Quote:

Who's supplying the space stations if they aren't launching anything?

I think I read that, for the time being, if the US needs to send anything up there, they'd hitch a ride with Russia.