You are correct, earthlings will probably not witness it, also if the sun is a Red Giant, Mars will have the same fate as Earth.

What's left out of the discussion is that the sun will be in its red

giant phase before everything settles down into an elliptical galaxy, right? It seems to me that the last simulations I read about ended up with the earth spinning in (because of drag with the sun's outer atomosphere). Although just hi-temp sterilization would pretty much have the same effect as far as our descendents are concerned. They'd just need a good way to get a lot of water onto Mars, maybe, huh?

John

_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy

Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com

The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club.

To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".