A flying star could save our Earth in a billion years

The predictions for life on our planet are not at all rosy, at least in the long term: in about a billion years, the temperature alone due to our proximity to the Sun will be so high that there will be no liquid water on Earth. – This is because the accelerating star takes the blue planet with it. At least that’s what the researchers discovered in the simulation.

The presence of liquid H2O is the basic requirement for life. Earth is blessed with this rare luck because it is located at exactly the right distance from the Sun, which is called the habitable zone. Unfortunately, this region, which extends in a circle around the center of our solar system, will not remain as it is forever.

As the Sun continues to grow and thus moves closer to Earth, in about a billion years the habitable zone will have moved so far back that Earth is no longer there. The result is temperatures so high, all living things on Earth will likely become extinct.

In a study that will be published in the Monthly Bulletin of the Royal Astronomical Society and now arksif However, scientists have used simulations to simulate a certain possibility that could save Earth from this fate.

The basis of the experiment was the assumption that a change in the Earth’s position in space could mean salvation. This would only be possible if a star passed at the perfect distance and its gravity returned Earth to the habitable zones.

The researchers calculated 12,000 simulations in which a star passed Earth at different distances – but at least the distance from Earth to the Sun – and thus changed its position. The result: In some cases, our planet has been hurled into noticeably cooler orbits, and in some cases into the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system, where countless rocks, dust, and icy bodies are likely floating around.

But what turned out to be particularly promising was the possibility that a hypothetical star could snatch Earth from the ancient solar system and take it with it. Then our blue planet will orbit the new sun at a habitable distance. The advantage of this option: It will also solve another problem – at least temporarily – which is that our sun will swallow the Earth within five billion years.

Sean Raymond, the study’s leader, explains in his book A private personal blogUnfortunately, the chance of a star passing at the right distance is very low. Aside from the fact that no star has ever gotten close enough, even if the flyby occurred, the chance of rescue would be 1 in 35,000, according to the calculations.

So Raymond advocates that humanity must find its own ways to block the sun’s energy.

However, the assumption that people will still be living on Earth in a billion years is too optimistic. Moreover, even if Earth was saved, it would just be an extended deadline anyway. Because in 100 trillion years (10¹⁴) the entire universe will begin to die, whether it is inhabited by Earth or not.