Will Pluto be the last habitable world when the sun becomes a red giant?
Within approximately 5 billion years, the Sun will begin to die and become a red giant,
increasing its size and the temperature of the entire solar system; in the process,
life on Earth will disappear, but in return, the most distant frozen worlds they will be warmer
and maybe habitable; in this scenario, Pluto is the last world that could be habitable by humans
before the Sun dies completely. Could we move humanity to Pluto when the Sun begins to die?
What would life on Pluto be like? Will it meet all the requirements to sustain the human race?
Join us to find out! The death of the Sun,
a devastating and inevitable end Today we know that the Sun will not shine
forever since the fuel that feeds it, Hydrogen, will run out in about 5,000 million years;
when this happens, the Sun's gravity will crush the core, heating it enough
to start helium fusion in a layer around the nucleus. This shell will expand, causing the
star to swell and cool, becoming a red giant. During this process, the Sun will lose much
of its mass through the stellar wind, which will intensify as the star expands. Finally,
after about 5 billion years, the Sun will shed its outer envelope, forming a planetary nebula that
will expand throughout the entire solar system. Finally, in the last stage, the core of the Sun
will be completely exposed, thus forming a white dwarf star, which will gradually
cool down over billions of years. But before this stage occurs,
What will happen to the planets when the sun reaches the Red Giant stage?
The end of everything During the red giant phase,
the Sun will grow large enough to engulf the inner planets, including Mercury, Venus,
and possibly Earth. However, the expansion of the Sun can also cause the Earth to move
far enough away that it escapes being swallowed. But even if Earth or Mars survive, both planets
will become charred and barren worlds. The oceans and atmospheres of these planets will boil and be
stripped of any water they may have held. They will go from habitable planets to
roasted and airless worlds, as Mercury is today. The gaseous planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn,
will survive the expansion of the Sun, but their final fate will be different;
it is still debated whether they will survive the expansion of the Sun into a red giant or
will be expelled into intergalactic space. In the red giant stage, the Sun will be
so hot and bright that much of the outer Solar System will be destroyed. Each gas
giant has a ring system; although Saturn's is the most famous, all four have rings.
These rings are made mainly of rocks and pieces of frozen materials, such as water ice, methane ice,
and carbon dioxide. With the extreme energies emitted by the Sun, these ices will not only
melt or evaporate, but the individual molecules of the gases will be so energetic that they will
be expelled from the Solar System. The same will be true of the
water-rich moons around these worlds. Today, the icy moon Europa has a low
surface temperature of around 110 Kelvin (-163 Celsius). That means it could heat up to over
770 Kelvin (497 Celsius) by the time the Sun has reached the end of its Red Giant phase. Naturally,
there will be periods in between when things could be warmer, but as the star clock ticks down,
Europa will get much hotter until all its water evaporates completely. The
same will happen to Enceladus, a Saturn moon. Farther away is Titan, a place with a lot of
frozen water and a surface environment rich in hydrocarbons; if ever there was a place that
could get interesting with Earth-like habitability conditions, it would be Titan. If Titan's surface
is about 94 Kelvin (-179 Celsius) today, it could warm up to a could be heated of about
25 grades Celsius. But like Europa, as the Sun reaches its maximum luminosity, we expect
Titan to reach 680 Kelvin (407 Celsius). That is not so good for the formation of living things.
Virtually all the moons around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will significantly reduce
their size as their atmospheres evaporate, their outer layers melt and disappear,
and only the rock and metal cores of these satellite worlds will remain.
Even some moons, like Titan or o Iapetus, composed almost entirely of volatile elements,
could go extinct due to solar winds. During the red giant phase, the surface
temperature of the Sun will decrease, but the surface temperatures of nearby planets will
continue to increase. For example, the Earth can reach temperatures over 1,000 degrees Celsius,
causing the surface to melt and evaporate. On the gas planets, temperatures will also rise,
but not as much as on the inner planets. This is because the energy
they will receive from the Sun will be much less. In summary, the eight planets of the solar system
and their moons will be completely uninhabitable; all of them will become hot, arid balls with no
possibility of supporting life. But what about Pluto?
The last refuge of humanity Pluto is a slightly different
story than all the others. This frozen world is 39 times further from the sun than Earth;
this distance is enormous; thanks to this, the temperatures of the Sun will affect
Pluto much less than the rest of the planets. In today's solar system, Pluto is coated in
frozen: solid water, solid carbon monoxide, solid nitrogen, and solid methane,
all at a frigid 43 Kelvin (-230 Celsius). But when the Sun reaches its maximum luminosity,
Pluto can heat up to 300 Kelvin (27 Celsius), an acceptable and
pleasant temperature for living things. On the way to that peak, it could take
millions of years between the freezing and boiling points of water (assuming a dense atmosphere).
Of course, as a frozen object like Pluto warms up, it will lose a great deal of sublimated material
to the vacuum of space. The water, carbon monoxide, and other gases on its surface will
simply go away. However, even a dwarf planet with as low a gravitational pull as Pluto (about 1/12
that of Earth) could retain an atmosphere thick enough to shield humans from radiation from space.
In other words, when the sun becomes a red giant, and all the planets are uninhabitable,
Pluto could develop a thicker envelope and possibly much more suitable conditions for life,
becoming humanity's last refuge. A small world for a huge species
Although be the only habitable place in the solar system, what would life be like in such
a small world in the distant future? Do not forget that Pluto is a dwarf
planet with shallow gravity compared to Earth. With gravity only 6% that of Earth,
special constructions would be needed to prevent people from floating away from the planet.
The low gravity of the dwarf planet would be one of the biggest problems. Due to the
low gravity on Pluto, any structures built on the dwarf planet's surface would have to be
specially designed to be sufficiently stable and resistant to low gravity conditions.
While on the one hand, this would allow us to make huge buildings without them falling under
their weight; on the other hand, anything thrown with too much force would be blown off into outer
space, so forget about playing baseball on Pluto. Also, Pluto's size poses significant challenges.
With a diameter of just 2,377 kilometers, Pluto is only about 18% the size of Earth and, therefore,
would not have enough surface area to support all of humanity.
If we assume that the world population of approximately 8 billion people needed to
be moved to Pluto, it would require enormous resources to build the facilities necessary to
house and feed all those people; now imagine how many people we will be in several million years.
To cope with these difficulties, extremely advanced technology would be required. It would
be necessary to design habitable structures that could keep millions of people in highly
confined spaces; it would not be comfortable. Efficient and highly sophisticated life support
systems would be needed to provide the human population with air, water, and food. Renewable
energy systems would also be required to power the energy needs of the dwarf planet.
One option to make Pluto more habitable could be to terraform it, that is, to modify its atmosphere
and surface to make them more similar to Earth. However, this process would be complicated,
although considering that we would have no choice, we would find a way to do it.
Another major problem that humans of the future would face would be the lack of
natural resources. Pluto is a small planet with few natural resources such as oil, natural gas,
minerals, precious metals, and a lack of water. Therefore, advanced recycling and
reuse systems would be required to ensure that the resources available on Pluto are used efficiently
and sustainably to support all of humanity. Furthermore, the lack of a natural environment on
Pluto would also significantly impact the mental and emotional health of the human population. Life
in a wholly artificial and closed environment can be challenging and exhausting, and special
measures would be needed to ensure the health and psychological well-being of the population.
Since Pluto is a dwarf planet located in the outer region of the solar system, it is likely to have a
shortage of natural resources essential for human life, such as water and breathable air. However,
a possible solution to this problem could be the creation of artificial ecosystems that
can provide the necessary resources to live. To create artificial ecosystems, scientists
and engineers would have to work together to develop technologies that can produce food,
oxygen, and water from materials available on Pluto. This could involve using hydroponic
farming techniques, where plants are grown in an aqueous medium instead of soil,
and creating air and water recycling systems to reduce reliance on terrestrial supplies,
much like those used on the International Space Station, but taken to a planetary scale.
In addition, using renewable energy, especially nuclear energy,
could provide the necessary energy for habitable structures and food and water production systems.
Of course, creating artificial ecosystems on a dwarf planet like Pluto would be an
enormously complex and challenging task. However, since humanity would have no
other world to take refuge in, they would be left with no choice but to manage to do so.
One stop, but not the destination Even if Pluto is the last habitable
world in the solar system when the sun begins to die, it will not be spared from catastrophe. As
the sun continues to grow in size and heat the entire solar system, Pluto would have,
at best, a few hundred thousand years, or possibly a million or two million years,
to bask in the glory of being the last habitable world in the solar system.
But when the sun reaches its maximum temperature, Pluto will also be burned by radiation and the
solar wind. Even the most significant Kuiper belt objects will be vaporized.
Despite their tremendous distances, worlds like Triton, Eris, and Pluto will receive more than
four times the energy on their surface that Earth receives from the sun today.
Their atmospheres and surfaces, currently laden with various types of ice and probably
subterranean oceans, will also evaporate completely. When the Sun becomes a red giant,
and the inner worlds are charred and swallowed by the Sun, worlds like Pluto will be habitable
for a short time, but then they will fry. They will lose all their water and become barren
worlds of rock and metal, like miniature versions of Mercury. Eventually, there will not be a single
habitable world left in the entire solar system. But don't let this depress you; Although every
corner of the solar system will cease to be habitable, chances are that the human race,
if it still exists by then, will manage to escape in time, building gigantic ships that transport
each member of civilization to a new solar system, using Pluto as a brief stopover to prepare
everything they need to embark on a journey to the stars, leaving behind the solar system where we
were born while we embark on a journey to find a new green and blue world where we can start anew.