From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 02:36:32 MDT
On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 05:21:26PM +1000, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> "Our Future Home"? I guess it would be a "renovators challenge".
>
> Now for a real ignorant question. Would an "expanding, dying
> Sun" effect Pluto's orbit and gravity significantly?
Not much. Planetary orbits are determined by the central mass, and as
long as the sun doesn't lose much mass the orbits will remain where they
are. In the innermost part of the system drag due to an extended stellar
atmosphere might doom Earth and perhaps Mars, but Pluto is far away to
escape it. When the sun leaves the red giant phase it will blow off a
planetary nebula, and that will decrease its mass, making Pluto move to
a more distant orbit - but by then it won't matter, since the remaining
part will be a white dwarf with very little luminosity.
It all goes to show that unmanaged stars are the ultimate energy and
mass wasters. For the environment, vote transhuman!
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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