Astronomers have discovered a star that could offer a picture of the world 8 billion years from now.
A recent study published in the journal Natural astronomy, which was carried out by a group of astronomers showed how the Sun and Earth could have evolved during the period 8 billion yearsand what our planet would look like.
A star classified as an exoplanet has reportedly been discovered, which could reveal what our world will be like billions of years from now. Its name is KMT-2020-BLG-0414, and it is located about 4,000 light years from Earth.
They also discovered that this star is orbiting a white dwarf, a concept that refers to the remnants of dead stars, and that They occur when a star’s thermal energy drops to a critical point. and the pressure is less than the force of gravity.
At this moment the star begins collapse and will eventually become a white dwarf, which astronomers estimate will happen to our solar system in about 5 billion years. But obviously before that happens, The Sun will go through several phases, becoming a red giant, until it engulfs Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth.
This process occurs after the stars have used up their hydrogen fuel, so at this point the stars will begin to fuse helium, causing them to collapse. Increase its size until it absorbs all nearby planets.
But this does not always happen and it is possible that Earth could survive as a rocky planet orbiting a “dying” Sunand can remain like this indefinitely.
Despite all the research, astronomers are not conclusive in this sense because they are cautious about the evidence: “At present We do not have a unanimous decision as to whether our planet will survive being consumed. red giant in the next six billion years,” said Zhang Keming, an astronomer at the University of California, San Diego and lead author of the study.
But this will make little or no difference because, as Keming explains, “The world will only be habitable for another billion years.”at this time, it is estimated that the oceans dried up completely as a result of the uncontrolled effects of greenhouse gases. All this will happen long before our planet is hypothetically swallowed up by any red giant.
What will happen to the planet in 8 billion years?
If we focus on the research itself, the main novelty is the discovery of a planet very similar to the Earth, which was first seen in 2020. It is similar in size to our planet and a star located 25,000 light years away. and what amazed the researchers was the fact that it was orbiting a white dwarf at a distance one to two times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
According to research, this planetary system also included brown dwarfs, which They are “mini stars” greater than the planetary mass limit, but not enough to be considered such.
But what will happen to humanity then? Well, according to the author of the study, by the time (when the Sun becomes a red giant) the Earth will be completely uninhabitable, but there will be time for the “habitable zone to move into region closer to the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn”, resulting in “many moons that become water planets”, so that humanity could “migrate there,” he concluded.