--- Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I do not think so. In ~4.5 billion years the sun > will be a Red Giant, and I > think the wavelength and power of the light will > change considerably before > that. http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Lectures/vistas97.html As far as I can tell, from reading this and other sources, the main sequence life (roughly G type yellow dwarf) will last about another 5Gyr. Supposedly, in 1.1Gyr, it will become too bright, by 10% or so, for surface life to exist here. This doesn't, I think, do the Gaia hypothesis justice. Something might evolve that removes more CO2, or does something to offset this. Of course, this can't last forever. Eventually it will get too hot. Or will it? By then, human civilization, or whatever or whoever the current landlords are, may do something to change all this. Stellar rejuvenation has been discussed, to extend main sequence lifetime by 10 times or so. If they can do this, putting up some solar shields to dump a few tens of percents of insolation is trivial. The sun might end up lasting much longer than I said. If I wasn't exact, at least I was closer than some who say it is only going to last a few more years. I sometimes wonder how many of the peculiar stars we see out there might actually be someone's engineering project. --Kyle
