the end of the world in site

Humanity will have to flee the galaxy, our world will be flung out of orbit or destroyed, in 5 billion years.We live in the Milky Way Galaxy.a collection of gas, dust and hundreds of billions of stars. Two million light years (20 billion billion kilometers) away lies the Andromeda Galaxy, about same size as the Milky Way. Current estimatesuggest that, in about five billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda may collide! Seroiusly. Hope we can invent warp drive by then.

5 billion years is a long time. We will be extinct as a human species by then. In fact, our decendants 3 or 4 million years in the future (iif we reach that far) probably won't look like us at all and/or will be a totally different species.

Don't think that this civilisation was meant to last forever. Personally, I wouldn't want that at all.

[Edited on 4-1-2004 by TheBandit795]

Why are you worried? It's not like you'll be living in 5 billion years. And besides, We'll probably be long gone from Earth in 5 billion years... hell, we may not even exist anymore.

I think any suggestions into the future that are spoken in BILLIONS are completely false and made up. Many things can happen in billions of earth years that can occur and it would be impossible to judge and judge fairly, especially when determining so FAR into the future. Anyone agree

Not if you study the mathematical models, trends, sun's mass and amount of hydrogen in the sun etc...

How old it planet Earth? is it not a couple of Billion years old or something, as far as we know at moment the universe is only 15 billion years old i think.

[Edited on 4-1-2004 by blobby]

I believe it is estimated that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old.

I'm personally not worried about what occurs billions of years from now, as I'll be long gone by then. As for the human race, as some people have already stated we are likely to be extinct far before that time.

Agreed, brother!

We have more problems sooner than that!

It's estimated that in 4 billion years our sun will have grown so large that it engulfs our planet!

But before that, while it's still growing, it will heat up the planet unbearably, probably change our climate - melt the bloody polar icecaps that everyone seems so worried about and then give all living creatures skin cancer from burning whacking great holes in our o-zone. So, we're doomed earlier than 5 billion years.

But I also agree - we're not meant to last. We'll probably have killed ourselves by then in nuclear war anyway.

Lol I doubt we are around after another 100 million years let alone a billion.

No worries here.

After all everything must end.

True. I wouldn't want that at all either. We are a violent species that are constantly at war. Either politicly or with weapons. Debates will always happen with religion,beliefs,etc. and that's when trouble starts.

from what ive heard, all the matter in the universe is moving apart, not closer together. this is described by the red light affect and also the big bang, where all matter in the universe was collected in a single point and then exploaded outwards.

im not planning to be around for the next 100 years, let alone 5'000'000'000. we will have destroyed earth by that time any way at the rate we're going, if it's not a nuclear war it will be the industry. either way, our future as a race is looking grim

great... in 5 billion yrs, we're screwed but guess what.....................in 5 min we're gonna have to evacuate earth cuz i'm gonna be on the toilet seat taking a huge #!

Read Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell sometime... he discusses the collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda - he's convinced it will happen (due to the "red" someone mentioned - the doppler effect). The funny thing is... he says the galaxy's are so sparse (meaning not dense) that they'll basically pass through one another. Of course, things will be mucked up (all those extra stellar bodies exerting gravitational pull!).

Hawking's book is really awesome for two reasons: 1) it's actually readable - it's much more consice and shorter than his previous works, and 2) it has really kick-butt illustrations that not only look awesome but explain these concepts very well.

What'll really drive you nuts... there are two current theories on what'll happen to our universe. The first is that everything will continue to expand until all the stars burn out and everything dies. The second... well, the universe expands to a certain point, then gravity sucks it all back in, bringing us back to a state like PRIOR to the big bang. He implies that another big bang would happen eventually, and that the big bang we believe in probably wasn't the first.

Read the book

edited part... I just had to add - 5 billion years is hardly in sight ...

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by BelowtheRadar]