WoW i would have to assume that these scientists where not funded for this exact thing. Perhaps they found this out while they where funded trying to do something else. at least i hope so...

My personal opinion is, who the hells cares what happens 5 billion let alone 1 million years from now. people should worry more and waste resources, time, energy on the problems of today and in the coming centuries.

none the less, pretty interesting.

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Well, the Earth can be moved!

Note: the following may not be true :-P

N.R.Bergrun, a NASA scientist, wrote a book titled "The Ringmakers of Saturn" in 1986 [I have not read the book, BTW], in which he explains the purpose of the three huge anomalous cylindrical objects near the rings of Saturn, one of which is the size of earth's diameter, and the other two larger. From what I have read somewhere, towards the later part of the book he writes how our Moon has been towed into position, and the "tow-er" exists in one of the craters on the dark side of the moon.

So we just have to brush it, oil and grease it, attach it to Mt. Everest, and we are ready for action

Why are people wasting their time here?

We've known since day 1 that the sun will expand then die. The Earth will die. Just like everything else dies.

In 5 billion years we will be long dead. I won't personally care, I'll have been dead for approximately 4,999,999,950 years. And neither should any of you lot care, you'll have been dead for just as long.

In summary, get a life. (Its only a short one)

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Why are people wasting their time here?

We've known since day 1 that the sun will expand then die. The Earth will die. Just like everything else dies.

In 5 billion years we will be long dead. I won't personally care, I'll have been dead for approximately 4,999,999,950 years. And neither should any of you lot care, you'll have been dead for just as long.

In summary, get a life. (Its only a short one)

We already have one each, thank you! We are just trying to enrich them

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Originally posted by weneedtoknow
this makes me laugh

Me too. Thats why I wanted to share it.

2 pages and growing.. discussing an event that may or may not occur in 5 billion years

great!

And thanks for your contributon. (God I love irony)

I have been totally amused by the thoughts about this concept, and I hope you all have too.

[edit on 26/10/2008 by VIKINGANT]

Originally posted by tom goose
We have already wasted enough time, i doubt we will ever reach those heights. If humans are working on a plan "B", the bulk of us that paid the taxes that would fund such experiments would not be alowed to come along for the ride.

And it will go over-budget several times and run way past the deadline (like most of our major projects). It is difficult for us humans to plan tens of years into the future let alone 5 BILLION years.

I had a good laugh at this one - thanks OP.

I don't think we really need to worry though. If we continue on our current course of "progress" we probably will have already destroyed ourselves and the earth by then.

Regarding moving to other solar systems e.t.c.

This is more existential I suppose but I was thinking it's a futile attempt anyway. The stars in them systems will eventually die too. In fact, all stars and the means of making stars will eventually die as well (unless there's something I'm not aware of?).

Eventually all the lights will go out, just black and nothingness. This makes me sad. I guess this is what death is like, but on a universal scale. It's nothing worth worrying about of course as nothing can be done about it, but the thought alone has my stomach in knots.

[edit on 26-10-2008 by John Nada]

It's worth pointing out here that Earth will probably be as far away from the Sun as Mars is today in 5 billion years. That's because the Sun is losing mass as it ages (at the astonishing rate of something like 4 million tons a second). If an object loses mass, it's gravitational field becomes weaker, and that in turn allows the objects orbiting it to move slowly outwards.