🧵 When did they discover that the Sun will explode?
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 05:15:05 UTC No. 16188988
So I've read that the Sun is going to explode in about 7-8 billion years from now, but when, exactly, is this "now" that the 7-8 billion-year timer counts down from? It's probably been a few centuries since that scientific discovery was first made, so shouldn't we update the books to say that the Sun will explode 6,999,999,408 years from now?
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 05:23:51 UTC No. 16188991
>>16188988
it wont explode.
it will just flare and continue burning its hydrogen
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 05:47:35 UTC No. 16189004
>>16188991
Yeah but when did they first learn that?
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 05:50:06 UTC No. 16189008
Predictions that are so far off into the future that they cannot be confirmed or disproved have nothing to do with science.
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 06:38:08 UTC No. 16189059
>>16189008
What about history, then? When was it first predicted that the Sun would explode in 7-8 billion years, and what was the name of the scientist who made that prediction?
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 06:55:23 UTC No. 16189077
>>16188988
It's just a rough estimate
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 09:06:56 UTC No. 16189203
>>16188988
It's a rough estimate. You calculate the size of the sun, estimate how much hydrogen is there based on its size, and then estimate how long those hydrogen reserves will last. Once hydrogen runs out, the fusion reactions happens with crappier fuel
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 13:53:08 UTC No. 16189528
>>16189077
>>16189203
But when did they first make that estimate?
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 17:33:52 UTC No. 16189792
>>16188988
No one knows exactly because no one knows exactly the age and composition of the sun. The accepted model for star evolution says that stars spend a lot of time in whats called Main Sequence, if i remember correctly which is fairly stable so both an old or a young star of similar mass might behave similarly, and you'd have a hard time figuring out the age just going by brightness and mass. The brightness is affected by impurities in the star, you just dont know what weird elements are in the core besides helium and hydrogen, not with accuracy.
Any scientific calculation that isnt a joke takes account of experimental and theoretical limits, and calculates expected errors. Which for something like the sun's age would be in the order of hundreds of millions of years.
Nevertheless, the theory of stellar evolution isnt that scientific because it has not been tested with observations. Unlike planetary motion, eclipses and shit, no one has seen the entire evolution of a star. So its not even a theory, its a hypothesis. Thats ok, people can make hypothesis, they should just not pretend they are what they are not
Anonymous at Thu, 23 May 2024 17:34:53 UTC No. 16189794
>>16189008
>have nothing to do with science.
They have a place with the rank of hypothesis, never ascending to coveted theory status
Anonymous at Fri, 24 May 2024 06:00:05 UTC No. 16190706
>>16189528
It was done in the 50s and 60s when physicists started to understand fusion reactions better and started to make models.