Astronomers see Dead Planets Crashing Into Dead Stars: by BrianKoberlein
When our Sun dies, the Earth will die with it. As a star of middling mass, the Sun will end its life by swelling into a red giant star. After a last cosmic moment of brilliance, the remnant core of the Sun will collapse into a white dwarf. This won’t occur for billions of years, but the mass and composition of the Sun means a white dwarf is its inevitable fate.
But the details of Earth’s demise are less clear. During the red giant stage, the Sun might swell beyond the orbit of our world. This could cause Earth to be cast off into interstellar space, or to be consumed in fire. But it might be thrown into an unstable orbit, causing Earth or its fragments to collide with the white dwarf in time.
Observations of white dwarfs have suggested this third scenario. Although most of the outer layers of a star are cast off during the red giant stage, white dwarfs typically have a thin atmosphere of gas remaining. One would expect this atmosphere to be elements such as carbon or oxygen, which are formed in the upper layers of a star’s core towards the end. But between a quarter to half of white dwarfs have heavier elements such as iron and calcium in their atmospheres.
Given the high percentage of white dwarfs with heavy metals in their atmosphere, there’s a good chance some of the Sun’s planets will end in a collision with the Sun. If that’s true, our world could end not with a whimper, but with a bang.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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