The end of our sun and life on earth

[AskMe4Pars]

Books and idea's are friggin awesome, I have read so many it is hard to keep track. I have to ask though why we as a species have not been planning how we are going to get the heck out of our solar system ? Whether we are hit by space debris or the sun just runs out why oh why are we not concentrated on how we as a species can continue to live ? Yeah it could be billions of years before the sun burns out or next week that another asteroid hits our planet. It is just, I dunno, stupid? Humans if we do not figure out a way to get beyond our sun are already doomed. Generational ship, warp speed, wormhole travel, we are going to need something to continue on. Yeah I am just blabbing on about the obvious but man, we have to do something. Sorry for the rant, we need to do something now, not later.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Anyway, on a more serious note , we probably don't have billions of years, out of the 4.5 billion we think the sun 'has left', the sun will increase it's energy output over time (assuming we don't fiddle with it?). I believe the amount of solar radiation that will cause Earth to go into a runaway greenhouse effect, like that on Venus, is going to be reached in 400-500 million years time. So that's really one of the first real 'natural' deadlines!

Mars may be quite a nice spot by that time with the extra heat. And a billion years later when Mars shrivels, perhaps relocate to Titan.

Anyway, I think your being a bit too panicky! Homo Sapiens have, as far as the evidence we've found only been around for 200,000 years, and in the mere blip that was the past 5000 years or so we stumbled upon civilisation and have since found out a lot more stuff. (Definitely a 'hockey stick' sort of graph on innovations and knowledge!)

Of course we've still got a lot to learn to be more responsible and sane, especially about our short-term impacts on climate, environment and the plants and animals of biosphere; and how to actually behave amongst ourselves. But with that sort of progression who knows where we will be in 5000 years from now. Could well be at the stars - or we could be a few tribes struggling in very hostile climatic conditions on a ruined earth, I suppose.

Personally I think going for a full-scale Dyson Swarm, at least at some point, makes more sense. Loads of space, loads of life, and loads of minds that could be employed for any grand project that might take our descendants fancy: garden ships, generational ships, warp drive etc...Maybe in a few million years Sol will be feeding a vast cloud of O'Neil orbitals that have a billion times the land area of old Earth, with a billion times more sentient beings than today...

...although who these sentient beings will be, I don't know. I read somewhere that the average mammalian species lasts 3 million years before going extinct, perhaps if long-living, the article suggested that you might get ~10 million years. Of course said species may not be around but their descendants could be well and happy. So whatever species come about from our evolution: both natural and artificial would be in this future....

 

[.matthew.]

There are potential crises that could destroy life on Earth, but they're most likely to be man-made. It would make sense to have at least a small self-sufficient colony out there somewhere for that reason alone. However, the big stuff, like planning for the end of our star and such is a little bit pointless.

The reason being, by the time any such event occurs, we will be far more advanced and will be able to come up with a plan far better than we could, likely having the means to actually achieve it as well.

It's like all the astrophysicists complaining about satellites blocking their views of the stars. Now I like stars, but the fact is their work has fair less benefit to the human race than having good internet coverage. By the time their findings are actually useful, it will be much easier to make those discoveries and thus their time is being wasted. Much like planning for something too far ahead.

 

[CupofJoe]

Why bother? Why should we spread our contagion to other planets, other solar systems?
We've managed to screw up the one world we've got in only a few hundred [or maybe thousand] years. We seemingly don't care enough about the only place we know can support us to try and fix it. So why go it to other places and screw them up as well?
We should sit here quietly and wait, welcomingly for a random asteroid or comet to put humanity out of our misery and give the world a chance to throw a six and start again.
But seriously folks...
Elon Musk has pretty much the same idea. He wants to get a viable Mars Station up and running fairly soon, 2030 or 2040?

 

[Bagpuss]

why we as a species have not been planning how we are going to get the heck out of our solar system ?

Well, where would you go?

 

[BAYLOR]

Well, where would you go?

Alpha Centuri is the closet Star to us and it may possibly have viable planets. Since we don't yet have FTL technology , The only way we might get there is with Generation ships of some type.

 

[Danny McG]

. I believe the amount of solar radiation that will cause Earth to go into a runaway greenhouse effect, like that on Venus, is going to be reached in 400-500 million years time

So have I left it too late to panic buy a load of toilet paper?

 

[Venusian Broon]

So have I left it too late to panic buy a load of toilet paper?

It is always too late to panic buy toilet paper. You should be panic buying toilet paper constantly. Except when there is a real panic on, where you should panic buy twice as hard.