25 February 2008: The End Is Nigh

Scientists have known for some time that the Earth will eventually become uninhabitable when our sun expands in the final stages of its life. And now they think they know when it will happen.

A team at the University of Sussex, working in conjunction with scientists in Mexico, have studied similar stars and say first the seas will begin to evaporate, filling the air with water vapour and causing runaway global warming that will kill all life as we know it. Then the earth will spiral slowly into the sun and be incinerated.

They suggest either pushing the earth out of its orbit to move it further from the sun, or building a fleet of interplanetary 'life rafts' to carry humans to new planets, further from our dying sun.

The good news is that we have a little while to make a plan. They say the sun's changes won't have much effect for at least a billion years.

SaintFM thinks that on current performance we'll probably have destroyed the planet ourselves long before then.