Contemplating Life Without the Sun

The ancients worshiped the sun--for good reason. Without the sun, this planet would be a pitch dark ball of ice doomed to wander the void of space without life or purpose. The upcoming motion picture "Sunshine" presents one scenario--based loosely on science--that would see our sun going out within fifty years.

Well, it's true that the Sun is expected to die, but not for five billion years or so. That, says Cox, is too far in the future for audiences to be able to relate to. By setting the action just 50 years in the future, when for example we see the roof of Australia's Sydney Opera House poking from a huge ice sheet, it gives us something we can worry about.

Cox and his CERN colleagues had to come up with an explanation for how the Sun could be failing so far ahead of time. “It was like: 'the Sun is going to die in 50 years, think of something, will you?'” says Cox. The “something” involves a "Q ball", the nucleus of a supersymmetric particle, getting itself lodged in the Sun. The hypothetical Q ball eats through normal matter, ripping apart the Sun's neutrons and protons and converting them into supersymmetric particles.

Do such Q balls exist? We don't know, but CERN are planning to search for them, says Cox.

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