What would life on earth be like if the suns distance from earth was twice as large it is from earth today ?

Question

so we're implying double its distance from earth.

now I'd love to learn what impact this would have on earth, life and seasons etc.

Answer 1

This planet has frozen over in the past at pretty much at it's current position from the sun. So, therefore, I would have to surmise that it would freeze over again only permanently. At that distance, it would be farther out than Mars is from the sun and Mars' surface at it's equator seldom gets above freezing.

Answer 2

Life will adapt to the different conditions or they will vanish. 

Answer 3

Then the Earth would not be in the "Goldilocks Zone" and life would not have happened at all.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habita...

Answer 4

There would be no life. The planet would be too cold.

Answer 5

Temperature would be a lot lower, and the year and seasons would be longer

Answer 6

Life would have evolved very differently.  

Answer 7

If the Earth suddenly moved to twice as far from the sun, all life on Earth would die within a few months.

If the Earth was always that far away, life would have evolved to fit that environment.

Answer 8

Consider this: Mars is about 1.4 times as far from the sun, as the earth is.  On Mars, the average surface temperature is around -80 Fahrenheit.  (Not -20F as alleged by another responder.)  Liquid water can exist briefly in equatorial settings, but basically everything is frozen, even most of the carbon dioxide.

We have done studies of how to keep Mars warm enough to sustain liquid water.  See the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2001), article by Gerstell, Francisco, Yung, Boxe & Aaltonee.  We presented this plan with a straight face, but not with any confidence that the outcome would be feasible.  It should be taken more as a token of how difficult it would be to make Mars into a life-sustaining planet. 

And get farther out -- to twice earth's distance from the sun -- and things would just be that much harder.  A lot depends on the planet's magnetic field, though.  Mars might not have lost so much of its original atmosphere if it had enough of an internal dynamo to create a shield against the solar wind.

 

Answer 9

Much, much furrier.

Answer 10

There would be no life, outside of the Goldilocks zone, life cannot thrive.