In a few million years, our dear sun will look like this, a beautiful glowing eye of spent starstuff trash in the shape of Sauron’s Eye. And no ring is going to save us from this one.
It’s the Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, 700 light-years away from Earth. Once upon a time it was a star like ours. As it died, it expanded engulfing everything around it. The gas cloud was created at the end. At the centre, the stellar core “glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce”.
This picture was taken using “three colours on infrared light by the 4.1m Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile”. The gas knots that you can see on the inner edge are of “unknown origin”.
Hopefully Humanity would have went to other star systems by then. If it can survive itself, that is. [APOD -- Thanks Mark!]
Alex
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 5:30 PMA few million years? that’s not that far away. It should be more like 4.5 billion, give or take a billion.
source: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/solar_chat2.html
Ritik
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 5:46 PMAlso by that time the surface temperature on earth would be pretty high. It’s not outlandish to suggest by then we would have colonies on mars or Jupiter or Saturn’s moons given the sun will progressively heat up over billions of years. Provided humanity survives that long
Shaun
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 11:40 PMOur system might be consumed and become one with the Andromeda Galaxy before this happens