Our solar system will die a terrible death, ‘crushed to dust’

According to a study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), Like every star, the Sun also has a limited lifespan. So, someday the Sun will die and parts of the solar system, including our Earth, will be sucked up by it – before it becomes a white dwarf – “crushed, and turned into a fine dust”, according to the New York Post. told.

According to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Warwick, when the Sun runs out of fuel, it will become a white dwarf, which will exert a huge gravitational pull that will suck our system to the point where it will be crushed. White dwarf stars are the final stage of a star’s life, once it has exhausted its fuel and no longer has enough mass to form a black hole.

Researchers said this is likely to happen in about 6 billion years.

“The sad news is that the Earth will probably be swallowed by an expanding Sun before it becomes a white dwarf,” said Boris Gensicke, a professor in the physics department at the University of Warwick, according to the New York Post.

“For the rest of the Solar System, some asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter, and perhaps some of Jupiter’s moons, may have been displaced and come close enough to the final white dwarf to undergo the fragmentation process we investigated. Are,” Mr. Gensike added.

During the study, researchers examined the brightness of three different white dwarf stars over 17 years. By observing how the brightness rose and fell, scientists were able to determine when the objects passed in front of the Sun and what types of objects they were.

The researchers observed that in most stars, changes in brightness or transit are highly predictable as the planets orbit in their regular patterns. But around white dwarf stars, researchers found that the transits were highly chaotic and irregular.

This suggests that the fate of objects around white dwarf stars is likely to be destructive and violent.

Planets, asteroids and moons that come close to a white dwarf’s dense core are torn to pieces as they are pulled into smaller pieces by gravity, the researchers said. Eventually, these pieces collide with each other and turn into dust.

“The simple fact that we can detect asteroids, perhaps moons or even planetary debris that orbit around a white dwarf every few hours, is quite astonishing, but our study “shows that the behavior of these systems can evolve rapidly in a matter of a few years,” Gensike said.

“Although we think we are on the right track in our studies, the fate of these systems is much more complex than we imagined,” he said.

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Published: 09 April 2024, 04:14 PM IST