The fate of Earth during the Sun's giant phases: New constraints from ab initio tidal modelling and AGB mass loss

Abstract

The long-term evolution of planetary systems around solar-type stars is governed by the interplay between stellar expansion, tidal interactions, and mass loss during the red giant branch (RGB) and asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phases. However, tidal dissipation efficiencies and AGB mass-loss rates both remain poorly constrained, leading to significant uncertainty in predicting the fate of planetary systems, in particular, that of the Earth orbiting the ageing Sun. We reassess the survival of the Earth and the inner Solar System planets during the entire evolution of the Sun, focusing on the impact of updated tidal dissipation prescriptions and varying AGB mass-loss rates. We modelled the orbital evolution of the Earth using stellar evolution tracks for a solar-mass star. We compared these results with outcomes obtained using previously published and commonly adopted tidal prescriptions, and we explored a range of AGB mass-loss rates. We find that the predicted fate of the Earth is highly sensitive to the tidal model and the assumed mass-loss rate. Based on updated tidal dissipation prescriptions, Earth survives the RGB and AGB phases of the Sun. In contrast, the use of earlier tidal dissipation prescriptions leads to engulfment during the AGB phase. Furthermore, low AGB mass-loss rates result in engulfment, and vice versa. Using the observed mass-loss rates of the AGB star L2 Pup as a proxy for the Sun's future AGB mass-loss rate results in the survival of the Earth during the AGB phase when combined with our tidal dissipation evaluation. Given the current observational uncertainties in AGB mass-loss rates, the ultimate fate of the Earth remains uncertain, highlighting the need for improved constraints on the late-stages of stellar evolution. However, considering observational proxies for the Sun during the AGB phase, it is likely that the Earth will survive the Sun's giant phases.

6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (26)

• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA)
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Time-Dependent Convection, Energy Conservation, Automatic Differentiation, and Infrastructure
• Tidal dissipation in stars and giant planets
• Stellar Models and Yields of Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars
• Foretellings of Ragnarök: World-engulfing Asymptotic Giants and the Inheritance of White Dwarfs
• Distant future of the Sun and Earth revisited
• Mass loss on the red giant branch: the value and metallicity dependence of Reimers' η in globular clusters
• ALMA observations of the nearby AGB star L2 Puppis - I. Mass of the central star and detection of a candidate planet
• Evolution and Mass Loss of Cool Ageing Stars: a Daedalean Story
• Convective turbulent viscosity acting on equilibrium tidal flows: new frequency scaling of the effective viscosity
• Slowly, slowly in the wind: 3D hydrodynamical simulations of wind mass transfer and angular-momentum loss in AGB binary systems
• The Effect of Tides on the Population of PN from Interacting Binaries
• An edge-on translucent dust disk around the nearest AGB star L2 Puppis - VLT/NACO spectro-imaging from 1.04 to 4.05 microns and VLTI interferometry
• Long-term dynamics of the solar system inner planets
• An Earth-Mass Planet and a Brown Dwarf in Orbit Around a White Dwarf
• 99 oscillating red-giant stars in binary systems with NASA TESS and NASA Kepler identified from the SB9-Catalogue
• Tidal Dissipation in Evolved Low and Intermediate Mass Stars
• Radiation-pressure-driven sub-Keplerian rotation of the disc around the AGB star L2 Pup
• Testing tidal theory using Gaia binaries: the red giant branch
• Morpho-kinematics of the wind of AGB star L${}_2$ Pup
• Rethinking mass transfer: a unified semi-analytical framework for circular and eccentric binaries. I. Orbital evolution due to conservative mass transfer
• Rethinking mass transfer: a unified semianalytical framework for circular and eccentric binaries. II. Orbital evolution due to nonconservative mass transfer
• Evidence for the Keplerian orbit of a close companion around a giant star
• Residual eccentricity of an Earth-like planet orbiting a red giant Sun
• The evolutionary state of the red giant star L${}_2$ Puppis