13 September 2007

Earth Saved!

As many of you spec fic writers out there know, the Earth is believed to have a limited lifespan. Specifically, when the sun expands into a red-giant it will engulf the Earth. This sounds bad! Of course it won't happen for 5 billion years or so. Recently, however, an article in Nature "A giant planet orbiting the 'extreme horizontal branch' star V 391 Pegasi" would seem to indicate this will NOT be the end of the world. Hurray! Earth is saved! I, for one, am relieved.

I would love to read a story about Earthlings and their red-giant. :)

I see The New York Times has a nice article on this:"Scientists’ Good News: Earth May Survive Sun’s Demise in 5 Billion Years".

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