Nearby Exoplanets Are About to Be Consumed by Their Dying Star and We Have a Front Row Seat
All good things must come to an end and that even means planet Earth… of course that’s not expected for another 7.59 billion years when the sun expands into our orbit. Now experts say we might get a preview of what that whole situation might look like, all by observing some nearby exoplanets that are about to go through that very situation.
Transcript
00:00 [Music]
00:03 All good things must come to an end, and that even means planet Earth.
00:07 Of course, that's not expected for another 7.59 billion years when the sun expands into
00:12 our orbit.
00:13 But now experts say we might get a little preview of what that whole situation might
00:16 look like, all by observing some nearby exoplanets that are going through that very thing as
00:21 we speak.
00:22 The planets are situated only 57 light years away, with a central star that is nearly the
00:27 same size and luminosity of ours.
00:29 But around twice the age, which experts say it's about to enter its red giant phase, or
00:34 when the star runs out of fuel and begins to die.
00:37 This results in the outer plasma shell of the star superheating and creating a fusion
00:41 reaction, causing it to expand out into the system.
00:44 And while it becomes cooler as it does so, its expanded surface area consumes anything
00:48 nearby before it eventually goes supernova.
00:51 Experts say that some planets could survive the expansion into a red giant phase, but
00:55 they need to be larger than Jupiter, or the largest planet in our solar system.
00:59 They might also survive if they're pushed further away from the star via mean motion
01:03 resonance.
01:04 But experts don't really know how that might play out, or what precursors would be necessary.
01:08 Still, we're going to have plenty of time to conduct those very observations, as experts
01:12 say the star won't fully consume its planets for another 1 to 1.5 billion years.
01:18 [music]