• Question: @paul is there any way that the sun can destroy mecury because its so close to the sun if it can , can it destroy earth?

    Asked by fazzie_ da don to Greg, Jen, Laura, Mobeen, Paul on 15 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Paul O'Mahoney

      Paul O'Mahoney answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      I don’t think the sun will destroy Mercury right now. Although it does make the surface of Mercury very hot and probably not a very good place for humans to live, it is not quite destroyed. Eventually, in a few billion years, the sun will begin to die, and during that phase the sun will expand. When it expands it might very well eat up Mercury, and make the Earth a very unpleasant place to live too!

    • Photo: Greg Melia

      Greg Melia answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      What Paul said. Our sun is big enough to go red giant, which means that before dying, instead of shrinking until it goes out, it expands and becomes a large, relatively cool star. It will be big enough to burn up both Mercury and the Earth. Before that happens though, Earth will heat up enough that it will be inhabitable: the oceans will evaporate and life will be impossible. People have estimated that this will happen around a billion years from now.

      http://www.universetoday.com/12648/will-earth-survive-when-the-sun-becomes-a-red-giant/

      Earth is 4 billion years old and the universe is over 14 billion years old, but we only have a billion years of life on earth left. It’s a weird thought.

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