Sun Burn

My outlook on life changed irrevocably in 1971.

I was just 8 years old at the time, carefree, a bit bonkers, geeky, impressionable and shy.

Then, in the Star Trek Annual that I received as a gift for the Christmas of that year there was in its part comic strip and part science based pages the devastating statement that our sun, the source of Planet Earth's light, heat and life giving energy was destined to explode and destroy everything in our known galaxy.

You can imagine my shock and not a little bit of annoyance at that revelation.

I was close to getting into the school football team at last , Lesley Whitehand had smiled at me, I was hoping to go from Cubs to Scouts and my pedal cycle was set up just how I wanted it after much investment of pocket money from odd jobs around the house.

I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach even after making allowances for having just eaten a bag of sherbet lemons and a packet of sour chewing gum (all after a big Boxing Day tea).

That jumping to conclusions without any logical thought is something that, in fact, I still do today in my early 50's.

If I had just stuck to and continued reading the extinction story over the page  in the Annual I would have seen that this devastating event was not due for about 7 billion years.

I have only just now been studying the physics and chemistry of this cataclysmic process which makes me think that had I had the same common sense at age 11 I could have saved myself quite a lot of unnecessary childhood anxiety and stress.

Yes, the time will come, in that far off future era when our reliable sun will just run out of fuel by which to run its cosmic nuclear reactions.

The only elements left after this empty tank moment will be helium, carbon and oxygen.

This combination will cause the core of the sun to shrink and under massive gravitational pressures generate huge temperatures.

Like an old lady having a hot flush (as a bit of a clumsy analogy) there will be a shedding of the outer layers which farther out in space will then cool and expand to some 100 times the current diameter. (That analogy actually finished nine words ago for fear of upsetting old ladies sensitivities).

Scary pictorial representation 

This will be the Red Giant stage which will radiate out and engulf the nearest planets in our solar system.

If it is any consolation,and again I wish that my 8 year old self had known about this , any ability of Earth to maintain life will have long since ceased.

The oceans and freshwater on the surface will have boiled away millions of years before and the soils parched to an arid infertility so as to be unable to provide any sustenance to any living creature .

When the helium is all used up anything left of the core of the sun will just be a cold black cinder.

Of course, the death of stars following this pattern is always taking place somewhere in distant universes.

Fortunately none of the giant reactions is close enough to cause Earth any concern.

For example, the light emitted by a Red Giant that died some time in the equivalent of our Prehistoric Age is only just now being detected by terrestrial telescopes and astro-physicists operating them.

I have got some reassurance after the clarification of the eventual fate of our faithful sun.

It has taken 46byears for me to come to that realisation but everything is proportional isn't it?

That 46 years could be the equivalent of a few billion light years in the recesses of space.

Try that for size Star Trek Annual.

(Inspired by the fantastic BBC Four Extra Series "Cosmic Quest "by Heather Couper)