What do you thinks going to happen in 2012?

[Général_Argos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant

The Sun is expected to become a red giant in approximately 5 billion years.[7] It is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large to engulf the current orbits of the solar system's inner planets, up to Earth,[11][12][13] and its radius will expand to a minimum of 200 times its current value.[14] The Sun will lose a significant fraction of its mass in the process of becoming a red giant, and there is a chance that Mars and all the outer planets will escape as their resulting orbits will widen. [15] Mercury and most likely Venus will have been swallowed by sun's outer layer at this time. Earth's fate is less clear. Earth could technically achieve a widening of its orbit and could potentially maintain a sufficiently high angular velocity to keep it from becoming engulfed. In order to do so, its orbit needs to increase to between 1.3 AU (190,000,000 km) and 1.7 AU (250,000,000 km).[16] However the results of studies announced in 2008 show that due to tidal interaction between sun and Earth, Earth would actually fall back into a lower orbit, and get engulfed and incorporated inside the sun before the sun reaches its largest size, despite the sun losing about 38% of its mass.

Thats nice.??But that is in 5 billion years.??There is one parameter that is not taken into consideration.??Technology.??Wouldn't surprise me that whatever form of life dominates the earth in 5 billion years, it will be able to modify the orbit of the earth.??And even within just 100 years, I think we would be able.??Like making a chain reaction, sending nukes on some giant asteroid to make it crash on earth or just pass near by the earth to modify its trajectory.??