Can anyone here please tell me about the sun dying?

In summary: For example, if the Sun were to veer just 1% off it's normal path, it could cause catastrophic climate change on Earth.A collision is extremely unlikely. However, all it takes to destroy life on Earth is to perturb the orbit a...little bit. For example, if the Sun were to veer just 1% off it's normal path, it could cause catastrophic climate change on Earth.
  • #1
questura
14
0
helloooo

new to this forum...and a total science noob who comes to you seeking knowledge...

:rolleyes:

Anyway - i recently saw the new danny boyle movie 'sunshine' - the story is about the sun dying and a rescue team who's on a mission to save the sun by reigniting it.

My question is?

- is it actually possible that the sun will die?
- and if so, what are the possible reasons for it?

simple explanations please - I'm not a scientist

:smile:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WNZwrgFo3GE"
 
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Astronomy news on Phys.org
  • #2
The Sun will die when it completely runs out of fuel. Before that, it will run out of hydrogen and switch to helium fusion. This will make it become a red giant that may well engulf the Earth. The Sun is too small to progress beyond burning helium. It will eventually shrink to a white dwarf.

Don't fret about this too much, though. It won't happen for a long, long time. The Milky Way will collide with Andromeda before our sun goes into the red giant phase. That will destroy not only our solar system but big chunks of the galaxy. Time frame for these events: Milky Way/Andromeda collision in 3 billion years, sun becomes a red giant in 4-5 billion years.

Regarding the movie: Awful scientific concept. Period.
 
  • #3
D H said:
The Sun will die when it completely runs out of fuel. Before that, it will run out of hydrogen and switch to helium fusion. This will make it become a red giant that may well engulf the Earth. The Sun is too small to progress beyond burning helium. It will eventually shrink to a white dwarf.

Don't fret about this too much, though. It won't happen for a long, long time. The Milky Way will collide with Andromeda before our sun goes into the red giant phase. That will destroy not only our solar system but big chunks of the galaxy. Time frame for these events: Milky Way/Andromeda collision in 3 billion years, sun becomes a red giant in 4-5 billion years.

Regarding the movie: Awful scientific concept. Period.

thanks for that DH..Hope you don;t mind me asking you some more questions...humour me:wink:

presumably there's a point for us here on earth, between where we are now and the sun totally dying out, where the start of it's demise will affect us. An ice age of some sort?

Do you have any idea of what degree of fluctuation in the sun's current behaviour would be required right now for something like that to happen?

<sorry - i know my grasp on the actual science is slender :frown: >
 
  • #4
D H said:
Regarding the movie: Awful scientific concept. Period.

actually - i just found this article on the sunshine site about the science in the movie

http://www.sunshinedna.com/?p=180 [Broken]

apparently there is some decent scientific for the situation in the movie
 
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  • #5
D H said:
The Milky Way will collide with Andromeda before our sun goes into the red giant phase. That will destroy not only our solar system but big chunks of the galaxy.

That seems to go against everything I've read concerning our collision with Andromeda. Namely that the VAST majority of the stars in our galaxy will not be "destroyed" by the event... perhaps only a few near the center of the galaxy will be in any real danger. Our solar system is far enough away from the center that this is not be a concern for us. Of course, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
  • #6
Newbie says Hi said:
That seems to go against everything I've read concerning our collision with Andromeda. Namely that the VAST majority of the stars in our galaxy will not be "destroyed" by the event... perhaps only a few near the center of the galaxy will be in any real danger. Our solar system is far enough away from the center that this is not be a concern for us. Of course, correct me if I'm wrong.

interesting - are you formally trained in this stuff?
Do you have any idiot-proof further reading in this direction?

would much appreciate it :rolleyes:
 
  • #7
questura said:
interesting - are you formally trained in this stuff?

No, I'm not formally trained... unless you count 1 semester of astronomy in college :)
Do you have any idiot-proof further reading in this direction?
Well, here's an very introductory level NASA article:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/F_When_Gallaxies_Collide.html

To quote:
"there is very little chance of stars from the Andromeda galaxy hitting the Sun or the Earth. Even though the galaxies pass clear through each other, she says, stars in a galaxy are spaced very far apart. "

Here is a good one which includes a computer simulation of the collision
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/tflops/
 
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  • #8
Newbie says Hi said:
To quote:
"there is very little chance of stars from the Andromeda galaxy hitting the Sun or the Earth. Even though the galaxies pass clear through each other, she says, stars in a galaxy are spaced very far apart. "

A collision is extremely unlikely. However, all it takes to destroy life on Earth is to perturb the orbit a bit.
 
  • #9
questura said:
actually - i just found this article on the sunshine site about the science in the movie

http://www.sunshinedna.com/?p=180 [Broken]

apparently there is some decent scientific for the situation in the movie
:rofl: No, this is nonsense. A bomb made of dark matter and uranium that re-ignites the sun to stop a Q Ball. :rofl: :rolleyes:

I was hoping someone here would address the sun dying for you.
 
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  • #10
Evo said:
:rofl: No, this is nonsense. A bomb made of dark matter and uranium that re-ignites the sun to stop a Q Ball. :rofl: :rolleyes:

I was hoping someone here would address the sun dying for you.

hehehe...i see. no solar experts then? damn
 
  • #11
? These aren't hard questions, questura, and you got good responses. There aren't a whole lot of people in the world with the profession of 'sun studier'.
 
  • #12
russ_watters said:
? These aren't hard questions, questura, and you got good responses. There aren't a whole lot of people in the world with the profession of 'sun studier'.

oh for sure...sorry, didn't mean to sound ungrateful :!)

It's just quite surprising how militant and definite people seem to be about the science involved, but then everyone keeps producing (what looks to me like) compelling evidence to back up what they're saying.
See, Evo says that stuff is "nonsense", but i just looked up the guy who was the science consultant on Sunshine and he looks like he knows what he's talking about > http://www.apolloschildren.com/brian/
 
  • #13
I'm not sure what the problem is - his credentials look fine, but the movie is a work of fiction. It isn't any more meaningful than the rediculously silly movies "The Core" and "The Day after Tomorrow". The fact that they are employing a real scientist as a consultant should not be taken to imply that he endorses the science behind the movie.
 
  • #14
A bomb made of dark matter and uranium that re-ignites the sun to stop a Q Ball.
Evo is quite correct, and Russ pointed out that appropriate/good answers were given. D H's original answer is spot on.

03 February, 1998. Astronomers have been able to date the Sun by applying the theory of stellar structure and evolution to data that describe the interior of the Sun found through the study of solar oscillations. The Sun is dated at 4.5 billion years old, satisfyingly close to the 4.56 billion year age of the Solar System as found from the study of meteorites.
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/AstroBrief/chapter12/sunage.html [Broken]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/solar_system/sun/sun_index.html

http://www-solar.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~eric/SOLNS/SUNLect2.ppt

The Sun will spend a total of approximately 10 billion years as a main sequence star.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_cycle

Lifetime of Sun: 10 billion years

Current age of Sun: 5 billion years
from http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~frogel/Ast161/outline161_a00_part1.html - near bottom in section "Stars"

http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/solarweek/MONDAY/facts.html

The Sun - http://jura.astro.utoledo.edu/~bjorkman/astr1010/chap10_1.pdf

http://physics.uoregon.edu/~jimbrau/astr123/Notes/Chapter23.html#types

This might be of interest - Age determinations of main-sequence stars: combining different methods
https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/1887/7326/1/A&A_348_897_909.pdf (best to use 'save target as')


At the moment, mankind cannot produce any device which would have any significant impact on the sun! It wouldn't even get near enough!
 
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  • #15
The story, like almost all pop sci-fi, is total fiction topped with sprinkles of scientific terminology. Star Trek has a science consultant too, but that doesn't mean the stories are rooted in science.
 
  • #16
Below is a link to a web page created by Helmut Schattl of the Max Planck Institute regarding the future of our sun-

http://home.arcor.de/helmut.schlattl/astro/animation/english/anim_index.html

There's a 7 minute video which is informative (this is a bit tricky to d/l. Right click on "The Future of Our Sun" and 'save target as'. In the 'file name' box, replace the second suffix .avi with .bz2 so the file name reads sun.avi.bz2, then in the 'save as type' box, change to 'all files', then save the file to your computer. Once saved, the zipped file can be opened with bzip2 or winRAR software. Alternatively, the video is posted on YouTube under the same title).

regards
Steve
 
  • #17
Lifetime of Sun: 10 billion years
Current age of Sun: 5 billion years
Great. Just great.

Our sun is in the prime of middle age. Just when everything is going along tickety-boo - BLAM - it's going to be outplaced by some younger, brighter, bluer star that's fresh out of a stellar nursery and all about the 'New Physics' and everything. Our Sun will be adrift in a world it was not made for. It will have to reinvent itself, start at the bottom again (probably won't even have any planet supervision responsibilites, and even have to clean its own stellar neighbourhood of dust and gas). And after all that, it will surely have to abandon its dream of retiring as a nova or even a supergiant, basking in the warm tropical heat. More likely, it will work right till its death and end up a shriveled, burnt out white dwarf, dying.
Alone.
In the darkess.

What? Did I say that out loud?
 
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  • #18
stevebd1 said:
Below is a link to a web page created by Helmut Schattl of the Max Planck Institute regarding the future of our sun-

http://home.arcor.de/helmut.schlattl/astro/animation/english/anim_index.html

There's a 7 minute video which is informative (this is a bit tricky to d/l. Right click on "The Future of Our Sun" and 'save target as'. In the 'file name' box, replace the second suffix .avi with .bz2 so the file name reads sun.avi.bz2, then in the 'save as type' box, change to 'all files', then save the file to your computer. Once saved, the zipped file can be opened with bzip2 or winRAR software. Alternatively, the video is posted on YouTube under the same title).

regards
Steve

oh nice one steve..thanks very much. I'll take a look at this this evening

:)
 
  • #20
DaveC426913 said:
Great. Just great.

Our sun is in the prime of middle age. Just when everything is going along tickety-boo - BLAM - it's going to be outplaced by some younger, brighter, bluer star that's fresh out of a stellar nursery and all about the 'New Physics' and everything. Our Sun will be adrift in a world it was not made for. It will have to reinvent itself, start at the bottom again (probably won't even have any planet supervision responsibilites, and even have to clean its own stellar neighbourhood of dust and gas). And after all that, it will surely have to abandon its dream of retiring as a nova or even a supergiant, basking in the warm tropical heat. More likely, it will work right till its death and end up a shriveled, burnt out white dwarf, dying.
Alone.
In the darkess.

What? Did I say that out loud?


LOL, nice one
 
  • #21
oooo...

look what i found...A video of Mercury

http://www.sunshinedna.com/videos/19 [Broken]

:)
 
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  • #22
offtopic (or maybe on topic - i don;t know anymore)

just seen a review on aintitcool from a screening here in London a couple of days ago:

"Having had the pleasure to catch a screening of Danny Boyle’s new film Sunshine, followed by a Q&A with the man himself and star of the film Cillian Murphy, I thought I’d share my 2 cents worth with you.

Essentially the plot is that the sun is slowly dying and a group of scientists are on a mission to reverse this by ‘kick starting’ the sun. The film knowingly references many sci-fi films from the serious and reflective, 2001 and Aliens, to the more popcorn, Event Horizon. To give you an early idea of how much I enjoyed it I’d place it much closer to the first two films mentioned than the latter. In fact some of the scenes almost feel like updated versions of Kubrick’s film (watch out for the monoliths at the end!) As their ship (the Icarus II) gets closer to the sun they encounter Icarus I, from an earlier, failed attempt. As soon as they decide to change course and investigate things start to go wrong.

Some of the most wonderful thing about the film are the visuals and sound design, this film is a treat for the senses. The CGI work is exemplary and goes a long way to establishing the sun as a character in its own right. The sound design suits the grand scale of the picture perfectly, we’re talking Oscar quality here, and Danny Boyle’s directing is at times mesmerising. The choices he makes behind the camera are inspired. He manages to infuse the screen with beauty, from the serene depictions of the ship at the beginning of the film to the extreme, jumpy, staccato, blurry and physically jarring work that comes later. It is all note perfect.

There are some fine performances but they are all overshadowed by the truly excellent visuals. Whilst Boyle does his best to balance everything out there is no denying that the visuals, don’t necessarily overpower, but are of a much higher standard that some of the acting on display. Cillian Murphy puts in a strong performance and is able to convey the internal struggle of the character very well. Both Michelle Yeoh and Hiroyuki Sanda are very good and Rose Byrne equips herself well in a part that is far too small. The other performances range from average to poor, the main problem being that the supporting actors are unable to fully portray the intellectual gravitas that such people in their position and their characters would inevitably have and that ultimately weakens the impact of the film. That’s not to say its all their own fault as the characters on the periphery are very one sided and stereotypical not leaving the cast a great deal to work with. Though it is not long before in true sci-fi style they meet untimely demises.

The closer the crew travel to the sun the more their obsession with its power takes control to the point where it takes on almost mythical proportions and the film poses some metaphysical questions.

A hugely enjoyable if not totally original film Sunshine would not exist if it were not for those that have gone before it. Boyle has borrowed from the best sci-fi of the last 40 years and brought it bang up to date. I personally can’t wait to watch it again!"
 
  • #24
UK release this weekend! BOH!

:)
 
  • #25
http://www.sunshinesunspots.com/ [Broken]

cute idea...and lol @ the first entry > http://youtube.com/sunspotsmessageuk [Broken]
 
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  • #26
I recently went to see this film and even though it has a number of scientific flaws, I enjoyed it (until the rather strange change in direction in the last third). One thing that was proposed on the website was that it was the possibility of Q-balls that were cutting short the Sun's life span and that a dark matter bomb was proposed in order to disperse the SUSY material in the Q-balls (I was looking forward to this being expanded on in the film but it wasn't touched). I have some idea of what Q-balls are and how they may affect regular matter but is there any understanding of how a dark matter bomb might be more powerful than a regular Atomic or H bomb? Is it proposed that dark matter might break down more than baryonic material therefore releasing more energy? I would normally brush this off as Hollywood science but this was proposed by a Dr. Brian Cox, a scientist at Cern (though it could be argued he's using artistic licence). It's a missed opportunity this wasn't included, in some way, in the film as the idea of 'our sun is dying' was way too simple as an introduction.

regards
Steve
 
  • #27
questura said:
My question is?

- is it actually possible that the sun will die?
- and if so, what are the possible reasons for it?

simple explanations please - I'm not a scientist
All stars die, it took a star dieing for our sun to form- stars actually are born from the death of other stars, though this is not always the case the bottom line is yes our sun will die.

There is a chart scientists use called the HR diagram (Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram) It's a graph of the luminosity of stars plotted against their spectral class(meaning Temperature)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram

In order to understand simply the way stars form and die look at this link:
http://www.dustbunny.com/afk/stars/lifecycle/ [Broken]
 
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  • #28
Zenparticle said:
All stars die, it took a star dieing for our sun to form- stars actually are born from the death of other stars, though this is not always the case the bottom line is yes our sun will die.

There is a chart scientists use called the HR diagram (Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram) It's a graph of the luminosity of stars plotted against their spectral class(meaning Temperature)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram

In order to understand simply the way stars form and die look at this link:
http://www.dustbunny.com/afk/stars/lifecycle/ [Broken]

thanks

:cool:
 
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  • #29
Sun shine is a really awesome movie you know

Yes it is possible that the sun will die an energy that the sun use is H and change this hydrogen(4000000tones of H will be loose every sec to use it to be a fuel to make an energy) into a H2(Helium) and use this H2 to be an energy and this process called thermonuclear. And after there is no more H in the sun it will can't make any thermonuclear process. So it need to use a last fuel left which H2 fusion to make an energy and in meanwhile the sun is swelling up and after that it will shrink rapidly into a white dwarf planet. It won't explode, but the sun will keep shining for about 4-5 billion years
 

1. What is the lifespan of the sun?

The sun is estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old and is expected to continue burning for another 5 billion years.

2. How will the sun die?

The sun will eventually run out of its main source of fuel, hydrogen, and will start to expand into a red giant. It will then shed its outer layers and form a planetary nebula, leaving behind a dense core known as a white dwarf.

3. Will the sun's death affect Earth?

Yes, as the sun expands into a red giant, it will engulf Mercury and Venus, and possibly even Earth. However, this is not expected to happen for several billion years, giving humans plenty of time to find a new home.

4. Can we prevent the sun from dying?

No, the sun's death is a natural process that cannot be prevented. However, scientists are studying ways to extend its lifespan by finding alternative sources of fuel.

5. What will happen to the solar system when the sun dies?

As the sun evolves into a red giant and then a white dwarf, it will push the planets in its orbit farther away. Eventually, the solar system will become a cold, dark place with only the white dwarf remaining as a remnant of the sun.

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