When Will Earth Be Tidelocked To The Sun?

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The discussion centers on the calculation of when Earth will become tidelocked to the Sun, with initial estimates suggesting around 5.5 billion years after the solar system's formation. This timeline aligns with predictions that the inner edge of the habitable zone will also shift beyond Earth's orbit, leading to increased temperatures. However, a subsequent source provided a vastly different estimate of 480 billion years, raising concerns about the accuracy of these calculations. The participants acknowledge that these estimates are rough and do not account for the gravitational influences of other planets. The significant discrepancy between the two estimates highlights the uncertainty in predicting Earth's tidelock timeline.
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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?
 
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so we're all going to fry in a billion years? damn, better start pulling out my super...
 
Astroboy said:
so we're all going to 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.
 
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.
 

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