First European Interstellar Symposium 2024

Ultimate Biosphere Survival: Interstellar Migration from the Post-Main Sequence Sun
12-04, 10:20–10:40 (Europe/Luxembourg), Banquet Room

In approximately 5 billion years, our Sun will start its post main-sequence evolution. The initial stage of this process, the subgiant phase, has a duration of about 100 million years. The sub- giant Sun will have a luminosity about twice that of the present-day Sun. Its radius will be about 3X the current solar radius. A more suitable phase for interstellar migrations is the horizontal branch of 500 million year duration in which the Sun’s luminosity will have increased by a factor of about 100X and its radius by about 10X. At intervals of 500,000 years or less, Sun-like stars approach within one light year of the solar system. This paper investigates the feasibility of using large space habitats accelerated by graphene solar-photon sails to enable interstellar migrations of ~1,000 year duration.