• Question: What will happen if the sun comes too close to the earth?

    Asked by 273cmtm29 to Christopher on 13 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Christopher Nankervis

      Christopher Nankervis answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      The Sun is extremely hot. More than 6000 degrees C. Anything that comes close to it also heats up, so the Earth’s oceans would evaporate into the atmosphere and the gases would then vaporise into outer space. We couldn’t survive for long near the Sun.

Comments

  • Photo: Stephanie

    Stephanie commented on :

    The closest we get to the sun is in Early January, during the southern hemisphere summer. It’s not much closer than in our summer in June, as earth orbit is nearly circular. Hopefully this orbit doesn’t get thrown off course by any weird collisions because we are about the perfect distance from the sun! It’s the Goldilocks distance: not too hot and not too cold!