lets say for arguments sake that we wont get hit by a massive meteor and humans wont kill the world with this stupid war, oil refinerys, nuclear power plants, global warming etc. How would the world naturally end?- the big crunch? or will it go on forever- the universe expanding on and on and....you get the idea. Or maybe its something we havent even thought about like a monkey with a guitar will jump out of the ground and say "i declare the world dead" and that'll be that (hmm...maybe not)
anyway, ideas please!

If the earth isn't effected by some fluke random event and just allowed to spin for as long as it likes then after several billion years it'll get eaten by the sun.

course before that it'll be flung out of orbit and spent spinning into the void in a massive billion year eliptical journey but assuming nothing gets in its way during that period then yeah. it'll get eaten by the sun.

Originally posted by Lupe_101
If the earth isn't effected by some fluke random event and just allowed to spin for as long as it likes then after several billion years it'll get eaten by the sun.

course before that it'll be flung out of orbit and spent spinning into the void in a massive billion year eliptical journey but assuming nothing gets in its way during that period then yeah. it'll get eaten by the sun.

Who knows Lupe, in several billion years we would probably be capable of stellar engineering. We could keep the Sun going permanently. I assume as well we would have branched out into a fair portion of th universe.
The Big Squeeze would be the ultimate end of the world, which I couldn't see anything being able to stop. But that is a long time away if at all.

I was really talking about an earth with no intervention, I mean before it gets eaten by the sun its probably going to get blown to pieces by fragments of other planets that have already been eaten, It could be pulled into the gravitational pull of another sun......in fact as far as I remember isn't there supposed to be a solar system about to go boom quite close to us....I think thats supposed to destroy our solar system before our sun finally expands enough to eat us up.

It will be interesting if we can develop defences for these outer space threats, before we are threatened by them. I think that if we are progressing at the rate we are now, then in a 100,000 or 1,000,000 years ( both insignificant amounts of time in the universe ) we will have the technology to deal with almost anything. Except of course an all powerful alien civilization bent on conquest.

"we will have the technology to deal with almost anything."

except perhaps our selves.

I fully agree Lupe. Our social backwardness is keeping us from greeat things.

Hi there , i am a new member,it also happens to be an astrophysicist as well as a mathematician.I think in the most of your theories you are right ,BUT there are other things that it might be usefull to consider.
Someone said ,that the most of the humans are sleeping for the most of their lifes,..Exactly!!!!!
Do you know how sad it is ,to be born in this planet ,the gift of life has been given to you and you cannot appreciate it ,you will probably concern about paying off your mortgage or your bills ......Well it not like that !!!
I hope you do understand ,as for when and where the universe will vanish ....The answer is that we don't really know !!!There are lot of theories :like the big crunch ,which is not so probable ,because the stars tend to move away from each other with a speed that increases with time .An example is some new observations along with theoretical calculations ....Light comes from supernovae is dimmer than it is expected ,which proves the theory that the stars ,galaxies,etc,from the day of the explosion of the supernovae have increased the distance with out planey and with each other!!!!
I am not guite sure ,to what is going on with the parallel universes ,because there is a suggestion that our universe came from the collision of parallel universes (big-bang).....Before that of course there is no way that we can escape the gravitational attraction of the sun ,one case ,if the sun become a red supergiant...The other case if the sun's nuclesr fuel will be exsausted then life automatically will end ,no light ,no life !!!No matter how advanced techologically we are ,plus the fact that would be roamin to the space for ever!!!!Thats for now i am waiting so emails to have a chat with you...

the thread doesn't ask when life will cease to exist on earth, it asks what the ultimate fate of the earth will be should no other external force (such as a meteor or human intervention) shortens its life span.

any insight you have into that would be apreciated.
Its obviously going to go dodo on us before the big crunch so what is the ultimate fate of the planet?

Sorry in advance...

TN1,

There is no way your an astrophysicist or mathematition...

The other case if the sun's nuclesr fuel will be exsausted then life automatically will end ,no light ,no life !!!No matter how advanced techologically we are ,plus the fact that would be roamin to the space for ever!!!!

Life does exist without light.... I'd like to refer to you exhibit A... Our very own planet...

If we were advanced enough... We could easily engineer our own star. Maybe we could place a ring planet around it... Or place it within a Dyson's sphere... Or perhap's we'll carve out the inside of an astroid and build a biosphere within... Heck...With enough resources, we could do that last one right now!

Any...respectable astrophysicist, would know this...good thing I'm not one... That mean's I can go off and make silly post's like these

Oh yeah....and all those year's of college...You still can't spell right? Atleast I have an excuse for my terrible spelling

Again....sorry

To whom it may concern ,
the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits!

Hi everybody ,
there is indeed a situation where life can develop normally and it has been observed to our oceans .They are called geothermical sources ,lots of miles below the sea level.You might expect that there is no life because the temperature is very low and light does not reach places like those ,but its not like that !!!
Life can develop and survive at the most extreme situations !!For example ,indications show that after a half-millions years only from the creation of our planet microbs could exist surviving these extremely high temperatures.
I want to say that if there is no light coming from the sun ,then 100% there would be no solar system because there would be no gravitational attraction and of course earth would be a lonely and freezing planet ,traveling to outer space and of course no life .