Exploring the Sun's lifecycle reveals its profound impact on the Solar System. As the Sun burns hydrogen, its increasing luminosity threatens Earth's habitability, potentially rendering it uninhabitable in 1 billion years. Mars may briefly become more hospitable, but as the Sun becomes a red giant, even the outer planets and their moons will face drastic changes. The Sun's transformation into a white dwarf will leave the Solar System cold and lifeless, with galactic dynamics playing a role in its ultimate dissolution.
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The Sun steadily burns hydrogen into helium, causing a gradual increase in its luminosity
Expansion of the Sun
The Sun will expand and engulf the inner planets, potentially including Earth, as it ages and becomes a red giant
Transformation into a White Dwarf
After exhausting its helium, the Sun will become a white dwarf, emitting less and less energy over time
The Sun will cast off its outer layers, leaving behind a hot, dense core that will eventually cool over billions of years
As the Sun's luminosity increases, Earth's surface temperatures will rise, leading to the extinction of photosynthetic life and rendering the planet uninhabitable
As Earth becomes uninhabitable, Mars may experience a temporary phase of improved habitability due to a greenhouse effect caused by the Sun's increased heat
The expansion of the Sun into a red giant will temporarily extend the habitable zone, potentially making moons like Titan and Enceladus more amenable to life
The Solar System's orbit around the Milky Way galaxy can influence the frequency of cometary encounters and may be altered by the predicted merger with the Andromeda Galaxy in the future
Over time, gravitational interactions with other stars may disperse any remaining planets around the white dwarf Sun, signaling the end of the Solar System as a coherent entity
The Solar System formed around 4.6 billion years ago from a cloud of gas and dust
The oldest minerals on Earth and meteorites from the early Solar System provide evidence for its timeline
Studying other star systems can provide insights into the processes of planetary formation and stellar evolution
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Sun's current evolutionary phase
Main sequence - burns hydrogen into helium, steady luminosity increase.
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Sun's luminosity increase rate
About 10% every 1.1 billion years.
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Timeline for cessation of photosynthetic life
Approximately 600 million years due to disrupted carbon cycle from solar output.
