Death of the Sun

Death of the Sun

2006, Science  -   12 Comments
Ratings: 7.62/10 from 52 users.

The Sun sustains all life on our planet. As we frolic and bask under the warmth of its glow, little do we realize how it may one day have the power to destroy us as well. Death of the Sun, produced by the renowned Naked Science series, outlines the birth and potential demise of the most formidable star in our solar system.

The aging process is rarely kind to any living thing. But in the case of the Sun, the diminishing returns of old age could mean disaster for our entire planet. Our technologies would be rendered useless, plant life would wither without nourishment, and mankind could be rocked by a power akin to a global nuclear explosion.

"All stars have a limited lifetime," warns astrologer Donald Brownlee early in the film. In order to determine the Sun's life expectancy, scientists must first discover how old it is. Until recently, collecting the samples necessary to make this determination has proven impossible amidst such a volatile and scorching celestial environment. As detailed in the film, scientists eventually uncovered an ingenious method for arriving at this calculation, and it involved the capturing of atoms from the Sun's energy force, a free-falling parachute, and the daredevil heroics of a Hollywood stunt pilot.

The research doesn't stop there. The filmmakers visit various institutes across the United States, and interview key players who operate on the forefront of this field of study. One researcher reveals how energy emanates from the Sun's core, and manages to overcome enormous obstacles to reach us here on Earth. An astrophysicist calls upon the science of sound to pinpoint the Sun's age with even greater precision. Space weather forecasters examine the Sun's most violent episodes throughout recent history, and keep constant watch for any further activities that could disrupt our way of life.

The Sun might be 93 million miles away from us, but its relevance to our daily existence couldn't be more immediate. Death of the Sun may seem like a fantastical what-if scenario from a big budget disaster film. But for many scientists, it's not a question of if, but when.

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12 Comments / User Reviews

Leave a Reply to mysterioso Cancel reply

  1. Paul

    Who wrote this? "All stars have a limited lifetime," warns astrologer Donald Brownlee" hold on a moment: Donald Brownlee is an Astronomer NOT an astrologer at the University of Washington.

  2. blah

    @Dustup, take your meds already ....

  3. DustUp

    @Pgetty; Clearly far too many limit their input to what the major media limits, edits, and pushes upon them, misnaming it news and information. Did you believe all the fear mongering nonsense Al Gore spewed forth and made mega bucks from? Which has been proved wrong. It was based on projections of manipulated computer modeling (garbage in = garbage out) not actual measurements.

    Did you know its difficult for scientists on the govt dole to get funding unless they can SCARE funding out of congress? That the NSF doesn't fund you unless you are with their fictional global warming agenda as we enter into the next global cooling era.

    It would seem the small minds are those eagerly willing to suck up anything and defend lies and fiction they bought into, rather than doing further investigations.

    Science is a tool of discovery. Much like those using an adjustable (Crescent) wrench for a hammer, far too many so called scientists misuse "science". Ever heard of "junk science" or "science Fiction"? Yet people for some reason are conditioned to believe most anything some authoritative sounding so called scientist who has no problem with fear mongering as long as they get paid.

    On the opposite side of the coin are so called scientists and media willing to discredit actual scientists like Pons and Fleischmann regarding their Cold Fusion discoveries. Now called LENR, they have been vindicated time and again but you never hear about it.

    Why should I believe some "scientist" if I have reasonable doubts as to their ability to calculate something accurately? Just because you buy into fiction makes me small minded? It would seem the opposite is true.

    1. Gina

      I think you are defending the wrong side of the argument. The government is the one who manufactures the biases and science attempts to rationalize them. Al Gore did not make up global warming, but since he capitalized on this, it must be false on the other side of the political spectrum. The fear mongering comes from political agendas, not science. Science is out to find the truth, unbiased truth. Politics is out to discredit the opponents. You have become blind to reality due to a stupid political alliance. Open your mind and find what is honest and non-tainted by politics.

  4. ammar

    it is a cool documentary

  5. Pgetty

    @dustup found the Trump supporter!

    Assume you're a troll. If not, wow. What a small mind you have!

  6. Jay Steff

    lets talk as they have and say that at 7:00 the moon pulled away from the earth and the giant tidal waves and lack of balance thrown us out into the solar system out of control.......
    so long before the earth is incinerated by by the sun, we are toast anyway.
    Now did either of those calamities get us before our SUV's caused enough global warming to finish us off?
    Obama, Al, help us out here......

  7. DustUp

    Fear mongering.

    I'd like to know how anyone knows much of anything about the sun. Have they been there? Did they send a probe? For all I know what we see when we look up and have been misled to believe is a burning ball of gas, is actually a sort of porthole through which photons pass. So sayeth some independent scientists who I would be more inclined to believe than a govt or govt "educa-shun" system.

    I've also read that all those distances from Earth to the sun, moon, and planets, appearing so accurately in some science textbooks ...all wrong based on wrong assumptions about gravity.

    Personally I have no problem saying I don't know and leave it at that. Physicists who forthrightly in an authoritative manner claiming they do know, are forthrightly full of pooh.

    Just because someone was taught something and passed that on, repeat, means what? Like many notions of yesteryear that have been obliterated over time, why is it so important to believe into or sound authoritative this time? Ego maniacs playhouse called science.

    One reason is to make you feel insignificant so it doesn't matter so much if a few or a lot of you mere ants get squashed. However, the human soul-spirit is a precious thing. Stand up for your right to be, to live, to create, to excel, to make a wiser world rather than a slave world run by the self proclaimed elite.

    1. Gina

      I think you can believe in mathematics, which is what all these estimates are built on. You are an antiquated relic in a modern world. If the rest of the world was to follow your path, we'd still be living in caves. Thank science for the life you have been blessed with.

  8. LeeJai Cook

    December 21, 2016. LeeJai Cook, Roaring Springs, Texas USA.
    Thank you very much for posting these videos!

    Relax! Our sun is good for another 25 billion years!
    41:9.5 Your own sun has long since attained relative equilibrium between its
    expansion and contraction cycles, those disturbances which produce the gigantic
    pulsations of many of the younger stars. Your sun is now passing out of its six
    billionth year. At the present time it is functioning through the period of
    greatest economy. It will shine on as of present efficiency for more than
    twenty-five billion years. It will probably experience a partially efficient
    period of decline as long as the combined periods of its youth and stabilized
    15:6.4 The trillions upon trillions of years that an ordinary sun will continue

    41:4.1 The mass of your sun is slightly greater than the estimate of your
    physicists, who have reckoned it as about two octillion (2 x 1027) tons. [Note: Be
    sure that the “27” is shown as Superscript so that it reads “10 to the 27th power.”]
    It now exists about halfway between the most dense and the most diffuse stars,
    having about one and one-half times the density of water. But your sun is neither a
    liquid nor a solid—it is gaseous—and this is true notwithstanding the difficulty
    of explaining how gaseous matter can attain this and even much greater
    41:7.2 The surface temperature of your sun is almost 6,000 degrees, but it
    rapidly increases as the interior is penetrated until it attains the
    unbelievable height of about 35,000,000 degrees in the central regions. (All of
    these temperatures refer to your Fahrenheit scale.)

  9. Martin Hedington

    Perhaps the OP confused the term with Galaxy. Ours containing over 200 Billion of them.

  10. mysterioso

    The doc description reads... "...potential demise of the most formidable star in our solar system." Uh, I think its the only star in our solar system.