Earth's Final Sunset Predicted

Earth's Final Sunset Predicted

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice," wrote the poet Robert Frost. Astronomers, it turns out, are in the former camp. A new calculation predicts that Earth will be swallowed up by the sun in 7.6 billion years, capping off a longstanding debate over whether the sun's gravitational pull will have weakened enough for Earth to escape final destruction or not.

There may even be hope for Earth. Some scientists have proposed a scheme for down the road to use the gravity of a passing asteroid to budge Earth out of the way of the sun toward cooler territory, assuming there is life around at the time that is intelligent enough to engineer this solution.

Full Story

To attempt something like altering the Earths orbit with the gravitational pull of an asteroid seems out of this world.

For humanity to still be around then ...seems out of this world.

Imagine the havoc that would wreak on the surface of the earth with storms and tidal waves. Nice to know we are thinking a billion years ahead though...I was worried





[edit on 27-2-2008 by Grimholt]

For us to not be able to pack up our bags and fly to another habitable planet in 7.6 billion years seems out of this world...

I hope humans are still around in 7.6 billion years. Which I believe there will be humans around during that time and after.At that time,humans will be spread threw out the Milky way. And there will be humans still living on the Earth.

Actually we only have one billion years....

Regardless of whether Earth will ultimately be vaporized, as the sun heats up, our planet will become too hot to live on before then.

"After a billion years or so you've got an Earth with no atmosphere, no water and a surface temperature of hundreds of degrees, way above the boiling point of water," Smith told SPACE.com. "The Earth will become dry basically. It will become completely impossible for life of any kind to exist. It's a pretty gloomy forecast."

Best be rocking and rolling on that asteroid maneuver....or have we already begun.....


Peace

I think we should make a plan so that the earth gets moved regardless of us still beign alive.

Planning something for millions of years in the future is not the easiest task however.

You guys are crazy.No one will live long enough to see this happen.We'll all be dead by 3000 unless we conserve.

According to Albert Einstein the entire Universe will end up into light. Fire or light : give or take some mph.

Originally posted by JAKEU
You guys are crazy

.No one will live long enough to see this happen

.We'll all be dead by 3000 unless we conserve.

I think the idea is that we would expand and colonize other areas in space. Thus negating the whole resource issue.. at least Earth's resources.

I don't think it's impossible for US to be alive billions of years from now as long as we as a world come together and prioritize space exploration.

Originally posted by Rigel

According to Albert Einstein the entire Universe will end up into light. Fire or light : give or take some mph.

Can you expand on this or quote some Einstein on this idea? If it's good for a layman and not too mathematical that is

well If in 7.6 billion years we havent blown our selves up and our technology isnt advanced enough to stop that from happening, or if we cant just move to some other planet than we should probably worry. But im willing to bet we will know what to do by then.

I've got this all planned out.

You see, I'm raising my kids to be thinkers. So in another 40 years or so, they will have raised kids that think, and therefore know more than them. After a few thousand generations, we'll simply build a spaceship and get off this rock in search of intelligent life. There's not any here, so it must be out there, right?

Other than that, I think I have more pressing issues right now.

TheRedneck

oh oh ohhh!!!! what about this for an idea... if we start now... by the time 1,ooo,ooo,ooo years from now comes around, we can have a mega spring built on all sides of the globe so we bounce off of whatever it is we come in contact with.... x=mcsquared


i kid ! i kid!

Originally posted by TheRedneck
I've got this all planned out.

You see, I'm raising my kids to be thinkers.

Excellent idea

You should also encourage them to join the space program and or gain political power that encourages it!

Originally posted by tomcat ha
I think we should make a plan so that the earth gets moved regardless of us still beign alive.

Planning something for millions of years in the future is not the easiest task however.

7.6 billion years Damn! I was thinking of spending a few weeks in the Swiss Alps then....