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..."

Comments

I wouldn't put too much hope in this

[nzhavok]

after all what are the chances your going to survive the asteroid impacts, catastrophic earthquakes, global warming, ozone depletion and the global flooding after the melting of the polar ice caps?

Re:I wouldn't put too much hope in this

[pmc]

When the polar ice caps melt, the ocean level does not rise. Why? because as ice they displace the same amount of space as they would if they were water. It is achimedes' principle.

Oft stated, but actually wrong (even ignoring the fact that some polar ice is on land). When the ice melts it melts for a reason - the sea has warmed up. And when the sea warms it will expand. See this Nature Abstract or even from USA Today

At least we'll have time to prepare

[sweatyboatman]

[snip]

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

For those who haven't heard this one before

[blonde rser]

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."

And in lage friendly letters...

[gnovos]

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...

Future Entrepreneurs Take Note

[StaticEngine]

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."

20 Ways the World Could End

[jsse]

Actually Discover has an article pointing out 20 Ways the World Could End - long before Sun expanding to get us all. Just telling me sun is a whimpy boy doesn't really relief me at all. :)

(btw, I think 17 is about the present world. :)

Not now, but when?

[labradore]

Okay, so we probably don't have to start preparing for the expansion of the Sun anytime soon but this brings to mind an interesting question: when do we have to start worrying? In other words, how long will it take to move an entire population off of the Earth? What would we take with us? Would we take lots of minerals? Lots of other species? Would we rather try to alter the Earth's orbit? How long would it take for us to do that safely? How do you move an entire planet? If you abandon the Earth, what information do you record about it to take with you? It seems to me that this is such a large undertaking that if we have to move with anything like todays technology we would want to start at least 50 thousand years before the eminant catastrophy. It seems to me that it would be the single largest undertaking in history.

On the other hand, if we plan on lasting that long I suppose it would be a good idea to colonize wherever possible. Mars and Venus seem like obvious candidates. Mars seems like a no-brainer but Venus would be the real challenge. Could we alter its orbit and the greenhouse effects in its atmosphere?

I think it is interesting that we expect that our own species will not last that long. I don't have any evidence for our longevity, but consider that we are the only species that we know of in Earth's history that is intelligent and uses tools to survive. We are the only species that we know of that significantly changes our own environment to suit us and we're the only species that can reach beyond our planet. It would seem already that we are a statistical anomoly.