It is estimated that in roughly 5.5 billion years our Sun will have exhausted its entire supply of hydrogen and, as its relatively smallish mass will prevent it from going supernova, will slowly begin the process of turning into a subgiant. When a yellow dwarf such as our Sun enters the last phases of its life - post hydrogen exhaustion - it doubles in size until it reaches its subgiant phase, before rapidly expanding in size during its red giant phase. Things get much more exciting after this (basically it rapidly shrinks in size but becomes super bright) but the important thing to remember is that as the Sun reaches its maximal point during its red giant phase it will expand to a size so large that it will completely engulf Mercury and Venus, and in around 7.5 billion years the gravitational pull of the red giant will be so great that it will pull the Earth out of its orbit and the Earth will die a fiery death as its falls into the Sun. (Interesting fact, as this happens the moon will eventually approach its Roche limit with the Earth, which means that eventually the moon will be destroyed under the force of its own tidal forces with the Earth, and for a brief blip on the timeline of history, Earth will have a ring.)

At that size and luminosity, the Sun will produce enough energy to potentially warm the surface of certain moons on Jupiter and Saturn to where they could support life. How exciting! Billions of years is plenty of time for life on one of those moons to evolve, perhaps intelligently. And barring humans gaining the will or the technology to leave the Earth (perhaps inevitable, but perhaps not), this would be a remarkable demonstration of the universe’s ability to produce and sustain life; the destruction of one womb of life begets the emergence of another. It’s really magnificent when you think about it!

And though the thought that the destruction of our collective home would usher in life on one of those exotic location is bittersweet, one thing that brings me comfort is that knowledge that the totality of destruction of the Earth that comes with literally falling into the Sun would all but guarantee that all knowledge, memory, or record of the absolute ass-kicking that Purdue suffered mid-day Friday would be torn asunder and scattered to infinity, never to be recombined and endowed upon distant generations, preventing further the humiliation suffered by Purdue and its fans at the hands of the Auburn Tigers during the Music City Bowl.

Yeah so my prediction was wrong. I was all hyped up on the bowl season that didn’t seen possible in October and the emotional rejection of his home school by our beloved coach to be bothered to notice the glaring red flags for those hopeful for a Purdue victory. I won’t run down the full list, but Purdue missing three major contributors on defense was certainly the lede to today’s story. People often talk about an offense being able to “do whatever they want” when they score 35 or even 42 points. Auburn scored 56 points. IN THE FIRST HALF. Auburn literally could do whatever they wanted. Most possessions didn’t even last long enough for us to fully appreciate what their offense was capable of. Yes, the Auburn defense played well, holding Blough to 184 passing yards and two interceptions (and one rushing touchdown, to be fair), but the real story was Auburn’s offense and Purdue’s inability to tackle on first contact, if they were able to even make a first contact. The numbers are both staggering and yet, don’t tell the full story. As a team, Auburn rushed for over 200 yards, and passed for nearly 400. But if you really want to know how badly Purdue go out-played, look at the timings for Auburn’s first half scoring drives: 1:03, 2:10, 0:28, 0:37, 0:41, 0:25, 4:51, and 1:03. Good lord look at those numbers. Those are video game numbers. Four of those touchdowns came on possessions of at least 75 yards. To say that Purdue couldn’t defend against the big play is understating it just a bit. Guess that’s what happens when you’re missing your best D lineman and two major secondary contributors.

There’s nothing much more than we can say about this game, so I’ll just end this by saying that the tape should be burned, the players and coaches should consult their favorite spiritual entity to remove any hexes or demonic possessions, and the team should just move on. The game is over, it’s still the week of Christmas; time for every one to give themselves the gift of forgetfulness. Take some time to rest, get ready for Spring workouts, and let’s close the book on this season. Then give that book a 7.5 billion year head start and fire that book into the Sun.