The possibility for life to survive the aging of Sun-like star

"When our sun enters its death throes in about five billion years, it will incinerate our planet and then dramatically collapse into a dead ember known as a white dwarf. But the fate of more distant planets, such as Jupiter or Saturn, is less clear.

On Wednesday in the journal Nature, astronomers reported observing a -tantalizing preview of our solar system’s afterlife: a Jupiter-size planet orbiting a white dwarf some 6,500 light years from here.

Known as MOA-2010-BLG-477Lb, the planet occupies a comparable orbit to Jupiter. The discovery not only offers a glimpse into our cosmic future, it raises the possibility that any life on “survivor” worlds may endure the deaths of their stars.

Because white dwarfs are small and dim, such a planet would have to be in a very close orbit for liquid water to exist. However, if life were to emerge on a world like Jupiter’s moon Europa, which might contain a subsurface ocean warmed by Jupiter’s tidal forces, it could potentially survive at a greater distance from the star.

“If humanity is somehow still around in five billion years, we would probably have a better chance of surviving the sun’s red giant phase on a moon of Jupiter than on Earth,”- Joshua Blackman, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tasmania and lead author of the study, said."