• Question: How long approximately do you think the earth will vanish

    Asked by anon-279883 on 5 Feb 2021.
    • Photo: Amal Lavender

      Amal Lavender answered on 5 Feb 2021:

      Honestly do not know as there are so many variables – e.g. if the earth is struck by a large asteroid at some point, when the sun would die etc.

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 5 Feb 2021:

      Calculations show that the Sun is nearly 5 billion years old and that it’s about halfway through its life. Since the Earth has survived so far, it’s probably safe to say that it will continue to do so, at least until the Sun finishes its normal running. We think that when it runs out of nuclear fuel, it will then turn into into a red giant, expanding enormously and probably swallowing up the Earth. Hopefully though, future mankind will have perfected interstellar flight long before and so will have already escaped our solar system.

    • Photo: Kate Dobson

      Kate Dobson answered on 8 Feb 2021:

      The Solar system is about 5 billion years old, and in about another 5 billion years the sun will run out of fuel and will grow into a red giant. As it gets bigger it will probably swallow Mercury, Venus and maybe Earth too, but until the hydrogen fuel is used up the Sun keeps getting brighter. In about 4 billion years the hotter, brighter sun will burn off the atmosphere, it’s still a long, long time in the future!

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