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The End Not As Near As We Thought
HiyaPower writes: "According to recent calculations cited by this article in TheAge, the calculations that the sun would expand to a red giant and engulf the earth are wrong. It will expand, but due to the loss of solar
mass over time due to the conversion of mass into energy, the earth will spiral enough further away thus avoiding the fate of Venus and Mercury. Personally I find this a great relief, I had some long term plans that I had been putting off..."
If only to watch and point and laugh.
You really do have to wonder exactly why people do so much research into this.
Is there something they aren't telling us??
I'm not worried about this. It will in most likelihood have died by then. Yet, my estimates may be wrong too...
He added that, although the Earth is safe from destruction, life here still faces some formidable challenges in the far future. The new calculations suggest that the surface of the Earth will become too hot to sustain human life for a few million years about 5.7 billion years from now.
This is about 200 million years later than previously thought - an extra period of grace that humans could use to develop technologies for living on a hotter Earth, such as building communities deep underground. Alternatively, the human race could move to another planet for a while.
[snip]
hard to imagine that after 5.7 billion years we'll still be worried about something as banal as the expanding sun. No, by then we'll have figured out a way to transmute our living soul into pure electronic energy and we will roam the cosmos, imortal and all-powerful.
Or we'll die out. How long did the dinosaurs live?
On the other hand, we may still be working the bugs out of the missile defense shield. Damn those decoys!
Sweat
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
There goes my end of the world party! What am I going to do! Caterer is going to hit me with a huge cancellation fee!
--------------
David O.
Pointless research - the human species will have all transcended their current forms to become 4 dimensional toasters with great hair.
At the end of a lecture young student puts up his hand:
"Professor, earlier you commented that eventually the sun will collapse and life on earth as we know it will cease..."
"Yes," responds the professor, "but not for billions of years."
The young student exhales a sigh of releif. "Thank goodness, for a moment there I thought you had said millions."
Astronomer Patrick Moore said: "In the end, no one really knows what is going to happen. But my message would be 'don't panic'."
Those of us who have already seen the galaxy on 30 Altairian dollars a day agree...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
You can make your slogan "Earth: As Close As You Can Get To The Action, With Your Feet Still On The Ground!" Or maybe even "Earth: Now The Closest Planet To The Sun!"
Seriously though, 7.7 Billion years from now is a LONG TIME AWAY. I highly doubt that any life form higher than an insect will exist then in a form that we would recognize today. And while possibly providing insight into what planets orbiting other white dwarves we should look to for signs of past life (once we get equipment that can resolve their existance, much less probe their surface), I don't think this is anything anyone needs to worry about today.
Of course, assuming further checks prove that the Earth will survive past the death of our own sun, perhaps we should leave a legacy to the rest of the Universe by planting the sum knowledge of mankind somewhere safe below the surface (assuming we could sheild it from geologic destruction) and send out satellites to the furthest reaches of the galaxy proclaiming the gift to all Life, everywhere. Just be sure to pack this with some T-Shirts that read, "I went to Earth, and all I got was this lousy Data Crystal."
...and i was going to get on the other ship with the middle management and the telephone repairmen...
"Earth, what a tan!"
{this below a picture of George Hamilton}
I like this picture or this one.
Get your Unix fortune now!
...there were only cockroaches and Dick Clark.
-- anthony
wonder if this will happen before MS is actually punished for their monopolistic behavior??
What, are you kidding? Now thier whole "keep the courts busy until the Earth boils away into a fiery red giant inferno" strategy is all shot to hell...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
And here I was thinking no matter what my date field would never need to be bigger than enough to hold 5.8 Billion Years.....
Watch them blame us poor programmers when all hell breaks lose......
Wanted : A Signature.
Because the Vogons are going to destroy this planet soon enough anyway.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
This expansion of the sun is such a needless bloat. I tried to tell God to use Linux instead but he just wouldn't listen.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I hope not everyone is like you. Of course, I'm referring to the Mozilla team (slogan: 1.0 sometime before the sun burns out).
Yes, I am exaggerating for humorous effect. I'm sure that, 7 billion years from now, they'll be very close to releasing Mozilla 3.0.
IE, on the other hand, will be up to IE 73,033,075.1, will take up approximately 300 petabytes of storage, and will have a security flaw which will give hackers root access to your machine before you even pop the CD into the tray.
Intel will be destroyed as a corporation after their experimental 27 quintillion transistor processor goes critical, destroying both their research facility and half of North America. Overclocking enthusiasts will then be rounded up and shot for the safety of mankind.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!