The Sun will blow up into a huge, glowing bubble of gas during its death

The Sun will shed a large chunk of its mass to turn into a planetary nebula, a gigantic globe of luminous gas, as it nears the end of its life cycle. Low mass stars like the Sun will become red giants and then white dwarves when they die. Now, a paper published in Nature Astronomy predicts that in between those stages, the Sun …

[DNTP]

Tolkien Elf Warrior Hairstyle Logic:

If you don't get to live forever, at least try to leave a beautiful corpse.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Re: Tolkien Elf Warrior Hairstyle Logic:

Astrophysics has never been my forte. The time periods are too, well, astronomical. I've decided instead to invest in forestry. Granted, even there, I may not live to personally see the benefits. Still, as they say, "die young and leave a beautiful copse.".

[Jim Mitchell]

Re: Tolkien Elf Warrior Hairstyle Logic:

@ Frumious Bandersnatch

Isn't that, "die young and *leaf* a beautiful copse", in that scenario?

[DNTP]

Re: Forestry

Forestry is forbidden under Elven law since everything runs on nature magic and doesn't need your help. For your crimes you are sentenced to be drafted into the Elven Army, 10th Stylist Regiment, the "Beautiful Corps".

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Forestry

Personally I plan to live forever.

So far, so good...

[Andy The Hat]

Re: Forestry

Who want's to live forever ... Who want's to live forever ?

I'm the one with a big sword and a liking for 1970's rock gods ... :-)

[Danny 14]

Re: Forestry

surely there can be only one?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Tolkien Elf Warrior Hairstyle Logic:

@Frumious Bandersnatch

Arrange for your corpse to be buried in the copse. That way you'll still be providing for the tree growth for sometime after your death

[Mark 85]

Once once the sun starts this process, we'll have about 135 hours to get the ultimate suntan before becoming a ball of flame ourselves then. Not that any of us will still be around when it happens in about 6 billion years but good to know anyway.

Icon: The one with the SPF 1000 sunscreen in the pocket.

[Carl D]

>>The one with the SPF 1000 sunscreen in the pocket.<<

First thing that came to mind for me:

"Anybody not wearing two million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2BlUN-h8-I

[ravenviz]

two million sunblock

Since SPF (in theory) extends your normal burn time by 'F' times, if you would otherwise normally burn in 15 minutes, then you get to see the view for almost 60 years before having to go inside for a lie down.

[Youngone]

Good

I will look forward to this.

I was getting a bit worried it might never happen.

[Schultz]

Cute conversion: 40,000 Kelvin (~ 39,727 degrees Celcius)

Does anybody believe that those 40000 K were estimated to within 1 K precision? I believe the proper conversion should be: 40,000 Kelvin (~ 40 000 degrees Celcius). Or use proper engineering units to give proper significant digits: 40 kC.

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Cute conversion: 40,000 Kelvin (~ 39,727 degrees Celcius)

Just be thankful that it's one of those rare publications that doesn't incorrectly call them degrees Kelvin...

[Robert Helpmann??]

Re: Cute conversion: 40,000 Kelvin (~ 39,727 degrees Celcius)

Or use proper engineering units to give proper significant digits: 40 kC.

Or very, really, truly proper El Reg units: 3,970Hn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's reasuring

Boffins had previously said it would shed Nebulas repeatedly.

Now we're told it will expand just enough to swallow the inhabitable goldilocks zone.

[Cuddles]

"So it took these people 25 years to figure out what I could have learned from an afternoon of reading a textbook."

Where exactly do you think the information in textbooks comes from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where exactly do you think the information in textbooks comes from?

Wikipedia. Duurrr

God, some people are so dumb.

[ravenviz]

What's Wikipedia? Everything's in my phone.

[Simon Harris]

You mean the textbooks that previously said it would take a star with at least twice the mass of the sun to turn into a planetary nebula?

[Danny 14]

since im a flat earther, im worried about the turtle and elephants. Will the great a'tuin be warned in advance to swim us away?

[Long John Brass]

Star-lifting

Time to start mining our nearest star and bring it's mass down a little; Bonus points for filtering out the hydrogen and recycling it back down to the fusion reactor :)

The 'left-over' crud is useful for all sorts of things

[DNTP]

Re: Star-lifting

I once had a shower thought: "Why don't we just mine hydrogen from the sun and use it for fusion power?" and then realized that we were already doing that and it's called solar panels.

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Star-lifting

It might also get a touch warm, although I guess you could do it at night ;-)

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Star-lifting

It might also get a touch warm, although I guess you could do it at night

Stand in Mercury's shadow and use a really long spoon.

[Danny 14]

Re: Star-lifting

just buy a 7a fuel scoop. those things scoop quite quickly. That being said, if the sun white dwarfs then you can supercharge your fsd a little then.

[mijj]

getting old has its embarrassing moments.

[Peter Prof Fox]

Never heard of Celcius

Is it like Celsius?

[Crisp]

40,000 Kelvin

So shorts and tshirt weather?

[Simon Harris]

Re: 40,000 Kelvin

Bet it still rains though!

[Anonymous Coward]

Disappointed

I was looking forward to an article about the newspaper...

[Luke Worm]

Re: Disappointed

Exactly my thoughts when I read the headline in my RSS reader :-D

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disappointed

I was thinking that if you replaced "The Sun" with "The Donald", it would make a lot of people happy.

That's not a divine being; that is someone using Colgate Total Care Toothpaste!!!

[deadlockvictim]

Frankie Mouse

Do you think that we'll be on our way to becoming hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings at that stage?

[Danny 14]

Re: Frankie Mouse

no, all the dolphins will have left.

[ravenviz]

New study shows the Sun will turn into a planetary nebula after all

Yay!

[rfrovarp]

Something is off

Their 90% number seems off. Most of the stars out there are red dwarfs. So are they saying that red dwarfs will transition to red giants?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Something is off

Maybe not red giants but according to this research all but the lightest red dwarfs release enough energy during the collapse to degeneracy to burp out some kind of nebula.

[JLV]

awww shit, now we definitely need to build a wall!

[Korev]

I'm not scared...

Didn't Oracle swallow the Sun a few years back?

[Torchy]

58 Days.

Only 58 days from the ejection starting till it toasts earth.