Sun to Engulf Our Planet Unless We Move it

This is jusy crazy talk...or is it? It looks like some are seriously considering the option.

The sun is slowly heating up and scientists predict that in five billion years it could turn into a bloated red giant, which would be very dangerous for out planet Earth. The sun would heat up the oceans which would turn into a boiling liquid, so the average temperature on Earth would not go below 50 degrees Celsius.

The plant and animal life would have too little time to adjust and only one organism called Archaea would be able to survive, but only for a while.

OK. This part we know, but the solution?

But moving the entire population of the planet Earth would take as many as 270 years if 1,000 rockets would take off every day. Even if the emigration worked, adjusting to a new planet would not be simple.

So that wont work?
How about...

But scientists thought of a better solution than mass evacuation to other planets. How about if we moved the entire planet?

According to principles of physics, that would be possible if we send an enormous rocket into space that would thus give the Earth a ‘push’.

Greg Laughlin of the California University and his associates concluded that it would be best for Earth to travel to mars’s orbit because that would drive it far enough from the sun and would receive as much energy as it is receiving now.

But even this has its own problems.

By moving the Earth’s orbit, other planets and space bodies would also move, which could lead to complete chaos in the whole solar system. Laughlin warned that it would be difficult to control the movement of planets and it would be best to just leave them where they are.

So what are our other options?

reply to post by VIKINGANT


So what if its 5 billion years away, stop procrastinating scientists! We will blink and 5 billion years will pass in an instant!

'What are our other options ?'


I don't know


Maybe during the next 5 billion years they'll devise a shield of some description

out of gas ?

a reflective medium ... a super 'sun shield' ?

artificial planets strung out between earth and the sun, these artificial planets to be constructed from 'sunglasses' type material so that they absorb only that heat etc. which would be surplus to Earth's requirements ?

You haven't really addressed the problem that moving the Earth to our nearest star would take YEARS, the Sun would no longer be providing heat for all this time and so the seas would freeze instead of boil. This would probably lead to most life becoming extinct anyway due to the cold. Even if the evacuation would take years there is:
(a) No need to worry about it now and..
(b) The knowledge of what was coming for billions of years beforehand.

However we may not even survive that long so I'm not going to worry myself about it.

I'm kind of laughing because 5 Billion years is an awfully long time to be thinking ahead for... I mean...humans have only been around for, as far as we can prove, or estimate, 200,000 years....its a pretty big assumption to assume we're going to be around for another 5 billion...heck, even a single billion.

In any case, however, this does highlight the need for a "plan B" so to speak to ensure human survival...whether we deserve it or not. Moving the planet is relatively ridiculous because it does nothing in terms of ensuring our survival... how far must we move? What happens when the sun shrinks in another 8 Billion years after expanding? What if, for some reason, the sun goes supernova? If all humans stay on Earth, but Earth is moved, it still means that a single cataclysm can wipe us all out...

No, the answer, even if it takes 270 years to do, is, I think, to move to other planets, terraform, expand. It both reduces the problems that come with population growth...overpopulation, reduction of resources, etc...and maximises genetic diversity in the species, in the longer, broader picture...which is good for the species.

Not to worry. The Andromedans will save us by pulling the planets with a tractor beam.

two lines.

[edit on 24-10-2008 by eldard]

What do these folks think the universe is? A really big snooker table?

Besides, scientists have been wrong about so much lately, I dare say they are probably wrong about this, and to me it just seems like another trashy news of the world type article than something to be taken seriously. We do not know enough about the sun to make accurate predictions, which won't stop a few people with fearmongering agendas.

Well I think if we are going to move the Earth then I think we should tilt it a bit as well because all us Northern Europeans with our white pasty skin could do with a bit more colour. The feel good factor!!!

And with the rise in food prices we could start to grow our own pineapples!!!

We would probably need Sun Protection factor 500 so you may as well pour a bucket of white paint over yourself!!

seriously misleading title...your trying be overly dramtic with the title...

While we may need to worry about this is 5 billion years or so...we are more pressed with making through the next 5 years...let alone 5 billion.


Yes the sun will "die" as all stars do... but in 5 billion years(if we are still around...super doubtful), then I am sure we will have more than enough tech know how to ensure our continued exists far beyond the reaches of merely this solar system. Just look how fast we have been developing tech in the last fifty years...too bad our psychology cant keep pace with it.

But still an interesting theory.... move the planet... now thats different...lol

Originally posted by TONE23
seriously misleading title...your trying be overly dramtic with the title...

To be honest I found it as amusing as everyone else does, which is why I wanted to share it.
I took the title direct from the article. No dramatisation from this end.
What I found most amusing is that there are scientists taking it seriously enough to consider the techniques and possible outcomes from the move.

I can't stop laughing over the thought of human arrogance.

President Of the world: So big brain scientist we our slowly destroying our world through economics and war, but now we have to worry about the sun blowing up. O whatever shall we do.

Big Brain Scientist: Well the boys in the lab were thinking we could just shoot off this huge rocket and push earth into mars' orbit.

PotW: wont that interfere with all the other planets?

BBS: More then likely but heck who cares about the rest of the Universe we just need to save our own behind.

PoTW: I'm so glad my great great great great.........Granddad created this one world government for us.

epic fail

edit: for spelling, way to early to be typing I guess
[edit on 24-10-2008 by hILB3rT]

[edit on 24-10-2008 by hILB3rT]

Maybe it's just were I'm from but this really isn't news I learned this in 7th grade about 23 years ago. Our class had decided that it didn't matter because one of the 2 would be true.

A. We will have gone extinct by that time due to a nuclear war, asteroid, etc.

B. If we can't colonize a single planet other than earth in the next 1 billion years we will be dead anyway due to using up all the natural resources because of the population growth over that amount of time.

A little off topic but this thread made me think, I believe there is a sister planet to the earth on the exact same orbit cycle but on the other side of the sun.


Prove me wrong

reply to post by VIKINGANT


It's 5 billion years away, but somehow spending 270 years to evacuate the planet is a problem? Uhhhh....

[edit on 24-10-2008 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by spitefulgod
Prove me wrong

Ok.
www.bbc.co.uk...
The L3 Lagrange point (directly opposite the sun from us in our orbit) is unstable. A planet would only remain there for about 150 years and it would eventually collide with us.

i'm sure if humans are still around in 5 billion years they would be so far beyond this problem and this planet that it would be of no concern.

While this is a fun thought excercise, the actual real-world problem is a little irrelvant.

...5 BILLION years! Come on. 5 billion years is a long, long, long time, and there is no way humans -- or anything at all resembling humans -- will be living on Earth then.

To put "5 Billion Years" into perspective:

- The whole Earth has been around for less time than that (4.5 Billion years).
- Modern Humans have been around for maybe ONLY 250,000 years (less than a blink of an eye compared to 5 Billion years.)
- Hominids -- or apes of any kind -- have only been around for 8 million years. Therefore the whole era of apes on Earth is only 1/10 of 1% of 5 Billion years.
- The dinosaurs extinction was 65 million year ago, which is 1.3% of 5 billion years
- Humans are a very, very small part of the past almost 5 billion year history of the Earth. In the grand scheme of things, human existence could almost be overlooked during the span of the last 5 billion years -- an outside observer looking at the whole of the past 5 billion years may barely even notice the existence of humans.

Humans will be long, long gone. In fact, the next 5 Billion years may see the rise and fall of 3 to 5 different intelligent species on Earth. Maybe us humans should someday move the Earth for the benefit of whatever future unknown intelligent creatures (or even non-intelligent, I suppose) that may inherit the Earth from us, but I'm more inclined to letting the super-intelligent descendants of today's field mouse (or even earthworm) worry about it.


[edit on 10/24/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Exactly.

Factor in 5 billion years of technological advancement and this is a total non-issue. By then we would probably just be able to either move or set up some sort of containment field around the sun. Or rather the technology would be so advanced that we cant even imagine it now with our puny brains.

Most likely humans wont even be around then.

Though i do agree that the whole 5 billion years from now thing is laughable, even if you were to somehow move the planet, that would only be a temporary solution until the star imploded, in which case earth would get caught in the explosion or not receive enough light to sustain life.

Oh good Lord ...why not just make a very long bunjy chord and tie it around planet mars or something and just sling shot the earth elsewhere ..

LOL Sheesh..