Stellar Evolution and the fate
of the Solar System
Eva Villaver (STScI/ESA)
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Earth From Galileo
Credit: NASA, JPL, Doug Ellison
Star Formation: Proto-Planetary Disks
Artist@ESA
STAR FORMATION
Birth 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Time in Billions of Years
8
9
10
11
12
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A STAR IS FORMED
STELLAR LIFE CYCLE
NEUTRON STARS
BLACK HOLES
HIGH MASS
SUPERNOVA
WHITE DWARFS
LOW MASS
PLANETARY
NEBULAE
SUN’s Life Cycle
Now
Birth 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Time in Billions of Years
8
9
10
11
12
4H
4He
Helium + energy
4x1030 pounds of hydrogen/s
Energy released: m c2--->26.7MeV
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Viorel Mihalef Rutger University
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Swedish 1m Telescope, LaPalma
Solar Granulation: convective heat transfer
Coronal Mass Ejections
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Into the future......
Red Giant
NOW
Birth 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Time in Billions of Years
8
9
10
11
12
What does it take for a planet to support life?
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Outer Boundary Habitable Zone: H2O
Ice
Kasting et al. 1993
Inner Boundary: “Runaway” greenhouse
Water vapor in the atmosphere
Terrestial Planets
Venus= Size, mass, density and volume...
BUT....Venus evolution has been radically
different from the Earth’s evolution
‰Atmosphere:
Hurricane force winds
Slow rotation (once every 243 days)
Composition ( 96% CO2, sulfuric acid)
‰Surface:
craters are 500 million yr old
H2O Evaporation
Venus Surface:
Magellan project JPL/NASA
• Not Magnetic shelter
• Closer to the
Sun...primordial ocean
evaporated in early times
Hubble UV image
SUN NOW
Tierra
SUN AS A RED GIANT)
ESA 2001. Illustration by Medialab
Planetary
Nebulae
Red Giant
White
Dwarfs
Now
Birth 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Time in Billions of Years
8
9
10
11
12
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Milky Way
We are here
Galaxy Encounters
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...... We come from an egg much smaller than the head of a pin, and we
inhabit a rock that revolves around a dwarf star, into which, in the long
term we will crash.
But we have been made of light, in addition to carbon, oxygen and
excrement and death and other things, and we are here after all,
because
the beauty of the universe needed somebody who could contemplate it
Eduardo Galeano