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Enki
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
 
2009-08-02, 16:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by !Marc! View Post
It has shrunk 15% in the last 20 years, so we might be very lucky and see it right at the end of our lives but I very much doubt it. I (crazily) guess it probably has to shrink at least 90% until it hits the iron core and rebounds, which means probably another 100 years at least.
Exponential accelerating curves? I don't remember seeing what the rate of shrinkage is. The off-gassing has to be relatively insignificant compared to the total mass. Smaller and denser, means greater gravity at the surface which means more inward acceleration per unit time... Whenever this one does go we learn a bunch more about how big stars really die.
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