I need to check a calculation for reasonableness. When I plug in the values for Earth and the Sun, I get a rough approximation of tidelock about 5.5 Gy after formation of the solar system. Is that anywhere close to the right answer?
Astroboy
Jun4-08, 06:56 AM
so we're all gonna fry in a billion years? damn, better start pulling out my super...
Fennelgiraffe
Jun4-08, 12:36 PM
so we're all gonna fry in a billion years? damn, better start pulling out my super...
That's also just about the same time the inner edge of the HZ will move beyond Earth's orbit -- give or take a few hundred million years. So things should be getting toasty anyway.
Fennelgiraffe
Jun7-08, 02:46 PM
Update: I found another source, with a different formula, and this one comes out to 480 billion years. Now I don't know what to think.
I know it's a very, very rough estimate, because neither version is taking the influence of other planets into consideration. The difference between 5.5 and 4.8 wouldn't bother me a bit--but the factor of 100 is a different story.