Nuclear Fusion: Energy, Sun's Lifespan, and Earth's Fate

This essay delves into the process of nuclear fusion, explaining how it generates energy within the sun. It details the sun's fuel consumption rate and estimates its lifespan. The essay also explores the eventual fate of the Earth as the sun evolves, expands, and eventually runs out of nuclear fuel. It discusses the potential impact on life, including whether humans will survive the drastic changes in temperature and environmental conditions. The essay references scientific findings about stellar evolution and provides insights into the future of our solar system. The essay also emphasizes the importance of understanding nuclear fusion for comprehending the cosmos and the life cycle of stars.

Running head: Nuclear fusion
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Nuclear fusion
In a matter of years, the earth will ‘grow’ outwards and increase in size. This is because
the resulting “ash” of hydrogen fusion, composed of helium, builds up in the inside of the star,
and the hydrogen fusing component of the star then builds a shell around that helium core. The
ash core becomes bigger and the hydrogen shell moves outward, coming closer to the star
surface and resulting in heat build-ups. The star then expands and gets hotter and hotter as the
hydrogen fusion shell expands. (Diamond, 2013)
In approximately 5 billion years, our sun will grow to over a hundred times its current
size, bigger than the current orbit of Earth around the sun. When it commences expanding, our
sun will ‘swallow’ up Mercury and Venus, with Earth in the vicinity (Boss, 2013).
However, as the sun grows, it also sheds big solar winds. The sun will lose big amounts about a
third of its total mass. This will result in its gravitational grip on the Earth weakening. Earth will
eventually go far from the sun.
The tremendous heat of the enlarging sun will evaporate the oceans and atmosphere, and
destroy life on our planet. The Earth as a planet might still survive, especially the rocky body.
Lessons from L2 Puppis (star) have supported this (Diamond,2013).
This will make the sun run out of nuclear fuel in about 4 billion years to come. When this
happens, there will be no any source of energy in the universe. This will make life on earth non –
existent. Humans will not have evolved to adapt to such conditions because of the drastic
changes, especially in temperature. This might thus be the end of life on planet Earth. (Symon,
2014)
However, before this happens, in a later stage of its life the Sun will expand and get hotter,
making life on Earth untenable. Humans will not survive (Eliuds, 2010).

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Nuclear fusion
References
Boss, A. (2009). Evolution of the solar nebula. I - No axisymmetric structure during nebula
formation. The Astrophysical Journal, 345, 554. doi: 10.1086/167930
Diamond, P. (2013). Nuclear Fusion Award 2012 speech. Nuclear Fusion, 53(2), 020404. doi:
10.1088/0029-5515/53/2/020404
Eliuds, M. (2010). Comments About Book Reviews for Nuclear Technology/Fusion. Nuclear
Technology - Fusion, 2(3), 463-463. doi: 10.13182/fst82-a20788
Symon, K. (2014). Plasma Physics for Nuclear Fusion. Nuclear Technology - Fusion, 2(2), 250-
250. doi: 10.13182/fst82-a20755