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6h ago

New Models Make Earth’s Escape From Solar Engulfment Plausible

The study shows that uncertainty now hinges on how much mass the Sun will shed in its final giant stages rather than on tidal drag.

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Exoplanet WD 1856 b, shown in this artist’s concept, is a gas giant that orbits its star at a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun. Observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope determined the planet’s temperature and detected molecules in its atmosphere. Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
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Overview

  • The peer‑reviewed paper published in June 2026 uses updated tidal‑dissipation physics and finds many mass‑loss scenarios in which Earth and Mars drift outward and avoid being swallowed.
  • Researchers fed real mass‑loss measurements from the red giant L2 Puppis into their models and found that stronger stellar winds can push planets outward faster than tides pull them inward.
  • The models consistently predict Mercury and Venus will be engulfed by the Sun’s expansion while Earth and Mars could survive as the Sun becomes a white dwarf.
  • Survival from engulfment does not mean long‑term human habitability because rising solar brightness will make Earth unlivable in about a billion years, long before the red giant phase.
  • Authors and other astronomers call for targeted observations of evolved sun‑like stars and missions such as PLATO to pin down late‑stage mass loss, which is now the key unknown shaping planetary fates.