Is Our Sun Dying ?

there had been speculation that our sun may be having some big problems. They say it may be something of what Stephen Baxter wrote on in Vaccum Diagrams. I'll get more info on it and a link.



[Edited on 20-2-2004 by John bull 1]

Well the has always been in a very very very slow form of decay by burning it's fuel source. But I HIGHLY doubt it will be going anywhere for hundreds of millions of years...

I agree. I think it will diminish slowly and that we will see no immediate problems. We should be ok for quite a while. If we WERE in any danger, I imagine we would have seen and experienced major problems with the sun already. We would have already seen the breakdown start to happen.

What we may consider a problem could be the natural behavior of the sun. We don't really know how it behaves because the time we have been observing it is comparable to just a second of its lifetime. Remember, the sun is estimated to be about 4 billions years old. In that course of time, there are things the sun is going to do or already has done that we know nothing about because we have only been watching it hardly a fraction of it's lifespan.

But if there was a real problem, I am sure we would know about it, especially if it was dying...it would be big...red and huge...but that's after the huge explosion that we wouldn't survive of it shedding some of it's outter layers...

Older than 4 billion, but yes...based on our observations, and our science, it seems relatively unanimous that we have at least millions more years of life in her...so I wouldn't break out the SPF10K just yet....

Even if I could live forever, I probably wouldn't make it more than a couple thousand before simply getting bored with it all....so no worries.....

Originally posted by Thorfinn Skullsplitter
What we may consider a problem could be the natural behavior of the sun. We don't really know how it behaves because the time we have been observing it is comparable to just a second of its lifetime. Remember, the sun is estimated to be about 4 billions years old. In that course of time, there are things the sun is going to do or already has done that we know nothing about because we have only been watching it hardly a fraction of it's lifespan.

But if there was a real problem, I am sure we would know about it, especially if it was dying...it would be big...red and huge...but that's after the huge explosion that we wouldn't survive of it shedding some of it's outter layers...

agreed... and it would get big and red before blowing off the outer gasses. and when it does turn into a red giant life on earth as we know would have been looooooong over, since that's about 6 to 8 billion years down the road. and even if humanity did still exist, we'd be swallowed up by the sun.

yes the sun technically is dying, since it's using up all of its fuel, but i wouldn't worry at all about that.

Well, it's hoped that we would have expanded off the Earth by then anyhoo....

OK, What I am speaking of is the interaction of Dark matter, gravitationally, with the Baryonic Universe. Steven Baxter, a popular Science fiction writer, may have actually touched on some truth in his writing. He wrote that, Even though it may not be apparent to us, there is the possibility that a Non Baryonic Life form may exist in the Dark Matter portion of space-time. The effects of this would only be able to be detected through gravitional Interferance. I dont think that here is Life per se, but what he said may hold some truth. The Dark matter, as dark matter, would not be able to form solition stars, and so would end up using the gravity wells of Baryonic Stars. This May have a very impactive result on our sun. We have though, decected abnormal readings from instruments pointed at the sun, with abnormal decay in gamma, beta, and alpha particles. I'm continuing to research it. I'll keep Y'all updated.

not a big fan of baxter at all... but that is interesting. if that's what you were originally talking about you should have mentioned it in the first post. not everyone has read that.

The sun is over 5 billion years old. 2 and a half billion years ago the sun was considered "young." The sun is dying like a 40 year old is dying. It isn't, it's just going through menopause. Some would say that we are in it's peak right now. Seeing as though life has changed considerably over the past 2.5 billion years (some scientists think that the advent of organisms excreting oxygen 2.5 billion years ago was what plunged us into the worlds 2nd worst ice age (a giant snowball)), who knows what the world/life will look like another 2.5 billion years from now. One thing is for certain, homo sapiens will not witness the suns demise.

EDIT: 2.5 billion years ago the sun was 30% less luminous than it is today. It's only getting stronger.

[Edited on 2-24-2004 by insite]

yeah, i agree with what you said. and who can say that there are irregularities in the sun? i mean, that's compared to what? research done within the past fifty years or so? people know nothing of what is actually normal for the sun.

You can rest assured that is something we will nt see in our life time.


The Sun is find. It goes through cycles Just like every other single thing.

There are more pressing issues.

insite === "One thing is for certain, homo sapiens will not witness the suns demise. "

Ok, I can buy that. (warm secure feelings)

insite === "The sun is dying like a 40 year old is dying. It isn't, it's just going through menopause. "

So much for warm and secure. So we gotta walk on ice or what. If we so much as
as smile funny, or flippantly swap our magnetic pole, does the sun start throwing things at us?
This is in my lifetime? How do you handle Super Solar PMS? Should we back off
a bit or what?


/\/ight\/\/ing

Yeah I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the sun is dying anytime soon. It is going to give off varying energy maybe in the near future but that is all that I can envision. I doubt their is any scientific model that supports this idea either.

Of course our sun is dying.

All stars do. What kind of question is this?

Originally posted by projectgeneva
OK, What I am speaking of is the interaction of Dark matter, gravitationally, with the Baryonic Universe. Steven Baxter, a popular Science fiction writer, may have actually touched on some truth in his writing. He wrote that, Even though it may not be apparent to us, there is the possibility that a Non Baryonic Life form may exist in the Dark Matter portion of space-time. The effects of this would only be able to be detected through gravitional Interferance. I dont think that here is Life per se, but what he said may hold some truth. The Dark matter, as dark matter, would not be able to form solition stars, and so would end up using the gravity wells of Baryonic Stars. This May have a very impactive result on our sun. We have though, decected abnormal readings from instruments pointed at the sun, with abnormal decay in gamma, beta, and alpha particles. I'm continuing to research it. I'll keep Y'all updated.

How do you propose non-baryonic matter can form life? In a strict sense of the word, we are not even baryonic life, but a combination of baryonic (protons/neutrons) and non-baryonic (electrons). We can rule out neutrino's (no interaction), all the mesons (unstable), the tauon and the muon (also unstable). All the options left are the electron, the foton, the W+, W- and Z0 vectorbosons and maybe the graviton. I don't see how a combination of these particles can form stable matter that can be the basis of life.
I would like to read about abnormal decay in the sun. I've never heard of that. Are you measuring from the ground? Cosmic radiation and the decay that happens when a cosmic radiation particle hits an upper atmosphere molecule could be the cause of the strange decay readings you talk about.

Originally posted by nightwing
So much for warm and secure. So we gotta walk on ice or what. If we so much as
as smile funny, or flippantly swap our magnetic pole, does the sun start throwing things at us?
This is in my lifetime? How do you handle Super Solar PMS? Should we back off
a bit or what?

Yeah bro you got it. Solar PMS. Believe it or not we are living in an ice age right now. Just 12 thousand years ago much of North America was covered in glaciers, during this time period the earth was only 6 degrees celcius colder than it is now (global average). An ice age is a 500,000 year period so it could get colder any day. This has to do more with chaos theory than the sun, but every little fluctuation in factors affecting earth has an impact on the planet.

I actually don't know what I'm trying to say because this thread is about the sun so I will get back to topic. THe fact is the sun is not yet reached the middle of it's life, although it's close. And the problems affecting mid life bodies can be seen in the suns own behavior. It's relative effect on Earth is obviously unknown.

anyone heard of it going from being a hygrogen, becoming a helium star?
i did, and then i read it somewhere else.
one day i was looking at the sun, and i thought, 'wow, it's really white!'
that night on art bell, he said he'd been getting hundreds of letters saying the sun looked whiter. (and to me, the sky is no longer the same blue, ....artists?)

eggheads chime in?

To answer amatines question. Yes, but imagine that ther was non-baryonic life...lets go even further and say that they are intelligent. Would't they say the same thing about Baryonic inteligence.

Like, "How could baryonic life form? all there is is electrons and protons. How would that be possible?"

There has to be the possibility that dark matter could combine to form life. It does though, bring us back to the Fermi Paradox. But maybe we just can't detect it yet. Or maybe we just got through a universal "Reboot"

"??" don't know.

Just conjecture...

Here is some interesting info from JPL regarding this topic.
Ant Nebula may shed new light on the future demise of our Sun

BBC: Planet found circling dying star

As for the book, Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter

I do believe that the sun dying is an eventuality like all stars. But I don't believe this will happen before we colonize other planets.