The Sun’s increasing luminosity is expected to render Earth uninhabitable within approximately 600 million years due to the breakdown of its biosphere. This paper presents a preliminary engineering analysis of an asteroid-assisted orbital migration strategy to shift Earth’s orbit outward to 1.3 AU. Using 120-km class asteroids and optimized launch windows (Venus–Earth: 170°–190°; Mars–Earth: 165°–195°), we apply Newtonian N-body approximations and patched-conic methods to evaluate momentum transfer via prograde hyperbolic encounters. Analytical calculations, grounded in Korycansky et al. (2001), indicate that each flyby at an efficiency factor η = 0.2 (corresponding to a pericenter of ~12 Earth radii) increases Earth’s semi-major axis by approximately 21.4 km. At a sustained rate of ~400 flybys per year, the required 0.3 AU migration could be completed in roughly 5,257 years. Perturbations to Venus, Mars, and the Moon’s eccentricity appear bounded under the present simplifying assumptions and the solar gravitational damping framework. While this study relies on simplifying assumptions and does not include full N-body integrations or propulsion details, it provides a preliminary mathematical and dynamical basis for evaluating the approach. Future work with high-fidelity simulations (e.g., REBOUND) will refine these estimates. This analysis contributes to the Stellar Death Clock framework by exploring a thermodynamically favorable pathway for long-term planetary habitability.
Moisés Frutos Plaza (Fri,) studied this question.