Re: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged>>

[Andreas Johansson <andreasj@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 7:44 AM, Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sim Koning wrote:
>
>> When the sun dies, the oceans will be boiled off the surface of the Earth...
>
>
> I wonder if the extremophiles (hyperthermophiles, to be specific)
> might survive. ÂAfter all, not only are they adapted to superheated
> water, they thrive at such temperatures. ÂUnless of course ALL water
> is boiled off... then even the extremophiles are pretty much screwed.

On current models of stellar evolution, it looks like a combination of
the expanding ageing Sun and tidal decay of the Earth's orbit will
result in the Earth falling into the Sun in about 7-8 gigayears.

Long before that, in perhaps only 1 gigayear, a brightening Sun is
likely to cause a runaway greenhouse effect boiling the oceans off.


Ref: K.-P. SchrÃder and Robert Connon Smith. 2008. Distant future of
the Sun and Earth revisited.

-- 
Andreas Johansson

Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?