Billionaire Elon Musk was widely mocked after explaining to Fox News personality Jesse Watters that he's set on colonizing Mars to ensure that human life continues once Earth is destroyed by the Sun—which is odd, because that eventually is billions of years away.
The Sun, our life-sustaining star, is essentially a massive nuclear reactor, continuously converting hydrogen into helium through fusion and radiating energy outward. But like all stars, it has a finite lifespan. Scientists estimate that the Sun will exhaust its core hydrogen supply in about five billion years, marking the beginning of the end of its stable life.
Still, Musk is convinced that he is handing the entire human race a “life insurance” policy to survive once that happens, saying:
“Mars is life insurance for life collectively. ... So, eventually, all life on Earth will be destroyed by the sun. The sun is gradually expanding, and so we do at some point need to be a multi-planet civilization because Earth will be incinerated."
Watters looked stunned as he admitted, “I’m hearing this for the first time. No one’s ever told me the sun is going to burn—” But Musk didn’t hesitate, brushing it off as “not a disputed fact” and assuring him the science is settled.
And after Watters said he "just didn’t know this was our destiny to get roasted by the sun," Musk admitted he’s got “a few hundred million years” before it becomes a problem.
He added:
“If Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, which is what the fossil record suggests, then Earth only has about 10% more life in it before it is, before it gets so hot that life is impossible."
"Mars is sufficiently self-sustaining and can grow by itself if the resupply shifts from Earth stop coming for any reason, whether that is because civilization died with a bang or a whimper."
"But if the resupply shifts are necessary for Mars to survive, then we have not created life insurance. We’ve not created life insurance for life collectively.”
You can hear what he said in the video below.
The mockery was swift.
Musk’s reassurance that humans have “a few hundred million years” before worrying about the sun ignores far more immediate existential threats. At our current pace, unchecked climate change or nuclear conflict could drive humanity—and countless other species—to extinction within mere centuries.
Even if we somehow avoid those disasters, Earth will likely become uninhabitable for humans long before the sun expands. In about 1.3 billion years, rising temperatures and humidity levels will make the planet physiologically unlivable for us. By 2 billion years, the oceans may evaporate entirely as the sun grows about 20% more luminous.
Some resilient lifeforms—like heat-loving extremophiles in ocean vents—may persist, but humanity won’t be among them unless we fundamentally change course or leave Earth altogether.
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