The change in Earth's orbit could disturb the motions of the other planets. Most likely, the moon would be stripped away from Earth unless some additional energy-expensive shepherding were arranged. The moon helps to stabilize Earth's axial tilt, and its absence could radically upset our planet's climate. . One billion years that's about all the time we have until the increasing luminosity of the aging sun cooks our planet to near death. But it does not have to be this way.
Researchers argue that gradually moving Earth farther from the sun is possible.
Since the sun formed 4.6 billion years ago, it has steadily grown and gotten brighter. Already it shines about 30 to 40 percent brighter than it did when it first entered the main sequence, its current long-lived period of stability. In about one billion years the sun will be 10 percent more luminous than it is now more than adequate to make land-based life difficult or even impossible. A team led by Donald G. Korycansky of the University of California at Santa Cruz has developed an ambitious yet feasible plan that could add another six billion years to our planet's sell-by date. The process is an unusual application of the well-known gravitational slingshot.