Earth�s Horrifying Fate!

It will also lead to our undoing.

I didn't mean that man should be primitive, I meant that they meddle too much. Far too anxious to control the flow of all things. Humans are obsessed with control, and nature has a way of phasing out creatures that don't live in accord with it's surroundings...

Originally posted by Thorfinn Skullsplitter
It will also lead to our undoing.

I didn't mean that man should be primitive, I meant that they meddle too much. Far too anxious to control the flow of all things. Humans are obsessed with control, and nature has a way of phasing out creatures that don't live in accord with it's surroundings...

While I agree that mistakes are made along the way it�s necessary in order for us to learn. The question I posed to this forum is dealing with �control� but the control I�m talking about is crucial to humans� survival. We can sit back and do nothing and hope that it goes away on its own accord or we can try to save humanity from extinction.

If you are going to go by averages, then it is safe to assume that humans will have been long extinct before this is even an issue.

I mean come on. We can hardly keep things together at the most simple levels, and we are going to magically prevent our own extinction?

The more we meddle and tamper with things that should be left alone, the worse we make things for ourselves...

Originally posted by kinglizard
What�s the point? It surprises me that in a community of such open minded people you can be so close minded. The science has been proved and reviewed by NASA. We can move this planet out of its orbit with the use of asteroids. At the center of this galaxy lays a supermassive black hole and it will consume this galaxy. People are saying �humans won�t be here� or �we will have evolved into something non human�. Do I know if humans will be around in a billion years? No. Do I think it�s important to ponder these types of questions? Yes. It�s at the very heart of being human; it�s the thing that allows us to survive. It�s the thing that separates the human animal from the monkeys. If the human �species� had to leave this planet because of impending doom it wouldn�t be enough. If we moved this planet out of its orbit to escape the suns demise, it wouldn�t be enough. If we were to populate this galaxy to escape the destruction of the Earth, it wouldn�t be enough. We will need to escape from this galaxy, because it to has a life span. Humans are here now and I�m going to assume humans will be around in the future, not just 100 years but as long as I can imagine. It�s wise for others to do the same.

Thorfinn, Please read my reply.

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by kinglizard]

Originally posted by Thorfinn Skullsplitter
I mean come on. We can hardly keep things together at the most simple levels, and we are going to magically prevent our own extinction?

Thorfinn check out this article, I think you will appreciate it.

Found an article:
By Dan Vergan, USA TODAY

Sun too close? We'll just change Earth's orbit

Anyone worried about the sun frying Earth sometime in the next billion years can rest easy: Astronomers have devised a way to move our planet to a safer orbit.

i don't want to die a long, painful, horrible death. Hopefully if we are in danger, they'll figure something out.

Heh, no I highly doubt it's been proven. It's nothing more than a mere thought. It can't be proven, because it can't be done, not currently anyways.

Can you imagine the amount of energy/propulsion it would take to move the planet? Not to mention how to keep everything on Earth alive during this journey that would take hundreds of thousands of years, and all of the energy it would take to keep the planet moving during this incredibly LONG time it would take to leave our galaxy.

Plus, can the planet be moved at lightspeed? Even if it were possible to get the planet moving that fast out of the galaxy, what effect would it have on Earth's atmosphere and core?

The thought is just ridiculous.

It's a nice thought for a sci-fi book or movie, but other than that. It don't mean anything.

Little rough math here...

At light speed, we would travel 5,865,696,000,000 miles a year.

The Canis Major Dwarf, the closest galaxy to us seems to be being torn apart by the Milky Way, so we couldn't stop there. The next best choice (which would be a huge maybe of even being a suitable place to stop), would be the Large Magellanic Cloud which is about 1,055,825,280,000,000,000 miles away. You get the idea?

I read the article, the thought is compelling. However, this would be a bit bigger of an operation then a "nudge" from an asteroid...


[Edited on 3-4-2004 by Thorfinn Skullsplitter]

I�m not an astrophysics but the people at NASA are. They say the science is good. Who are we to question that?

"Their analysis shows that it works, but I don't think we'd want to do it this way," says astronomer Jack Lissauer of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

Originally posted by Thorfinn Skullsplitter
Plus, can the planet be moved at lightspeed? Even if it were possible to get the planet moving that fast out of the galaxy, what effect would it have on Earth's atmosphere and core?

We would run into the same problems using space ships to vacate the planet. We don't need to move the Earth at light speed, we can move it at a slow pace, we just need to start at a time that would allow the planet to leave the galaxy before being swallowed.

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by kinglizard]

you cant move a planet outta orbit! you know waht tha would do to the climate. the the dark side of the earth would freeze and the light side would boil. and besides its impossible to move a planet unless something really big hits it!

Ok, let me ask you this:

1. Gravity
How in the world are we going to ensure that the earth remain's spinning at a constant speed enough to maintain Gravity.

2. Tides and Weather
What kind of weather control are you going to use. And is the Moon coming with us?? Tides would probably be all screwed up, while one side of the planet floods and freezes, the other side boils and is a desert.

3. Temperature
So say we move the Earth, now the planet is a frozen ball of ice flying through the universe with about 9 Billion frozen corpses floating around in the gravity free atmosphere.

4. The Atmosphere
How do we ensure that the atmosphere is going to move with the planet. I do belive that it would suck if it decided that it wasn't coming with us.

Don't get me wrong. I think that on the off chance that the human population is around to wittness this event, we should be so technologicaly advanced that we should not need the earth, everything that we have advanced upon would help us escape that fate. Starships, light speed and other such advances will most likely be around. But I must say that I have to agree with the comment that we most likely blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons. -Muzz

It would be easier to colonize the asteroids and use them as life boats. And maybe just maybe a moon perhaps we would take one of the icy moons like europa along with us on our way out of the solar system. Using asteroids is mankinds only future in space. You just cannot expect to afford moving enough mass from earth to space to truely have humanity inhabiting outer space. How easy would it be to convert a space rock into a spaceship. Pretty easy actually just start small. Small Roids pass near us all the time so we would not even need to travel far to get started.

The Blackhole may destroy are galaxy someday but that will most likley happen after are galaxy colides with the adromeda galaxyso it wont make much difference for humanity anyway. Besides thanks to the work of Mr Hawkins the blackhole is doomed its self to evaporate into nothing because blackholes give off atoms here and there and in time scales of a trillions of trillions of years they just disapear

I registered just to clear this up.

1. Black Holes do not grow as they consume matter.
2. The gravity affecting us from the Super Massive Black Hole at the center of the galaxy is so small that it is insignificant.
3. The only way to not be able to escape the black hole would be if we enter it's even horizon, which is very small (orbit of mercury I presume?)
4. Black Holes evaporate after time.
5. If you are going to worry about something, worry about the Gamma Ray Bursts that orbit our galaxy every 200 million years or so. If and When Earth comes in contact with a Gamma Ray Burst, half of all life on earth will be destroyed (the half facing the gamma rays lol)

Originally posted by Jade Falcon
1. Black Holes do not grow as they consume matter.
2. The gravity affecting us from the Super Massive Black Hole at the center of the galaxy is so small that it is insignificant.

Point 1:

Black holes grow by consuming matter.

Do black holes grow when matter falls into them? Yes, the mass of the black hole increases by an amount equal to the amount of mass it captures. The radius of the event horizon also increases by about 3 kilometers for every solar mass that it swallows. A black hole in the center of a galaxy, where stars are densely packed, may grow to the mass of a billion Suns and become what is known as a supermassive black hole. Recently Chandra has found evidence that black holes with masses of about a thousand Suns can be formed in dense star clusters by processes that are not yet understood.

chandra.harvard.edu...

Point 2:

We are affected by the gravity of the black hole in the center of our own galaxy. What do you thing makes our galaxy a spiral galaxy? It is the thing that rotates every star, planet, moon, and gas cloud around a single point and that single point is a Supermassive Black Hole.

we all know that our solar system is gonna get screwed over in the future. no big surprise. let our future great great great great (etc.) grandkids worry about. it's not our problem.....yet.

Originally posted by Jade Falcon
3. The only way to not be able to escape the black hole would be if we enter it's even horizon, which is very small (orbit of mercury I presume?)

This statement is not all together true, although I know why you think this. Try to follow me. The center of our galaxy is a supermassave black hole, it�s gravity has a tight grip on the material closest to it. The material closest to it has influence on the stuff next to it, and so on until we reach the edge of the galaxy. When the black hole consumes the stuff closest to it , the stuff next to that is moved closer to the black hole, like a conveyer belt. If you look at the galaxy like everything is connected to everything with bungee cords you will see that we can�t escape the back hole.

Do black holes grow when matter falls into them? Yes, the mass of the black hole increases by an amount equal to the amount of mass it captures. The radius of the event horizon also increases by about 3 kilometers for every solar mass that it swallows. A black hole in the center of a galaxy, where stars are densely packed, may grow to the mass of a billion Suns and become what is known as a supermassive black hole. Recently Chandra has found evidence that black holes with masses of about a thousand Suns can be formed in dense star clusters by processes that are not yet understood.

chandra.harvard.edu...

Point 2:

We are affected by the gravity of the black hole in the center of our own galaxy. What do you thing makes our galaxy a spiral galaxy? It is the thing that rotates every star, planet, moon, and gas cloud around a single point and that single point is a Supermassive Black Hole.

Hmmm... I was not aware of these recent findings.
However,
We are effected by everyting since gravity is infinite. But, gravity decreases proportionally to it's inverse square of its distance. It is so far away that it's force is very small. Our galaxy does not spin because there is a black hole in the center, it spins because almost all observable mass is at the center, and because of angular momentum. And still, cosmologists aren't really sure what else gives a galaxy spin. Only objects near it have to fear falling into the singularity. And even still! Not all matter falls into it, but orbits it and is also jetted out through it's poles.


Want to know what awaits us in the future?





Approximately 1,000,000 AD- 50,000,000 AD: If the descendents of humanity still exist and thrive, they are becoming a Karadashev Type III civilization sometime during this period, heavily dominating and more or less in control of the entire Milky Way galaxy...

[B]Approximately 4,000,000 AD:
Human-derived civilization has possibly colonized the entire Milky Way galaxy by now......assuming they faced no alien opposition, or insurmountable cosmic obstacles-- and also avoided destroying themselves over the past several million years.

Approximately 40,000,000 AD: Australia joins with Asia


Approximately 100,000,000 AD: If humanity suffered a catastrophic decline or extinction sometime between 2,000 and 3,000 AD, there would still remain some subtle fossilized signs of their existence on Earth even now


Approximately 150,000,000 AD: Humanity's ultimate descendents or replacements on Earth may now be meeting their own end

If humanity managed to survive without major setbacks past around 2650 AD or so, then some form of the civilization may have continued on, even up to today. Of course, such a civilization likely would be unrecognizable to its ancestors. It might perhaps be wholly machines-- a race of robots.

On the other hand, if humanity injured itself badly enough before 2650 AD, or some external force like a comet impact did something similar, human civilization may have been set back severely at the time, perhaps never to fully recover. Or a whole new civilization might have arisen over thousands or tens of thousands of years, based upon largely different technologies than the first (due to resources like easily accessible minerals and fossil fuels having been depleted by the previous generations). The necessity to invent new technologies not dependent upon the same elements prior civilization used (and the greater possible difficulties therein) may have even delayed the rise of the second civilization by a million years or more. This new human civilization might have little or no idea of the first-- legends of entities like 21st century USAmerica, Russia, and China might be their own versions of Atlantis. If this were so, that would be unfortunate, as it might lead to them repeating the mistakes of their forebears, to begin a new cycle of catastrophe and regeneration. Eventually of course humanity might not recover from one of these cycles, going extinct instead.

150 million years would be enough time for 25 different non-human civilizations to come and go, if they required only roughly the same 6 million years or so humanity did to arise from its ape forebears. Or, if the succession was of slight variations of human beings, requiring maybe one million years between them for evolutionary changes, there could be up to 150 different human variant civilizations rise and fall over the same period. Each separated from the other by hundreds of thousands of years in terms of artifacts and relics. The evolutionary changes might involve growing resistant to high levels of radiation from nuclear war, or to various biological weapons or toxic pollutants loosed by previous generations. Or they might entail shrinking in size due to chronic food shortages. Or using a combination of technology and natural evolution to adapt to living undersea, due to increased radiation from nuclear wars or distant star explosions afflicting the Earth's surface. Many sorts of changes could be forced upon mutated human beings, depending on what humanity itself does during this time, and what the cosmos itself decides to throw our way.

2,000 AD- 200,000,000 AD: Sometime during this period the pair of stars making up the binary star system KPD1930+2752 collide, producing one of the largest supernova explosions the Universe has ever seen

Earth may be bathed in lethal gamma radiation. If the blast lasts only a few minutes, perhaps only half the life on the planet dies. The Earth's biosphere could require a long time to recover-- even from a short blast.

Approximately 500,000,000 AD: The Sun is getting steadily brighter and warmer-- which means things are getting warmer on Earth as well

The extra heat causes the weathering cycle of Earth's silicate rock to accelerate, more rapidly converting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to calcium carbonate stored in the oceans. This helps reduce the impact of the hotter Sun for a time, but eventually the Earth runs too low on atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the cycle grinds to a halt. Long before the cycle stops, much plant life on Earth has died due to the dearth of carbon dioxide in the air. Long before the majority of plant life dies, most animal life perishes, as plant food supplies dwindle, first killing plant-eating animals, which starves out meat-eating animals.
After 500,000,000 AD, 95% of all Earth plants (including trees and most human food crops) begin to die out. This will eventually leave only plants derived from tropical grasses such as sugar cane and corn still alive. However, even these may die off relatively quickly for other reasons, since they alone will be unable to sustain the Earth's biosphere to continue the growing conditions to which they are accustomed. Earth is fast becoming a desert world despite still possessing substantial oceans.

Approximately 750,000,000 AD: By now the Milky Way galaxy is colliding with and begun to absorb the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy

Approximately 1,000,000,000 AD: Little more than lakes, ponds, and puddles are left of Earth's once mighty oceans today. A brighter, hotter Sun has evaporated them away into space

Approximately 1,500,000,000 AD: Our galaxy is beginning to be distorted by the gravity effects of the larger Andromeda galaxy which is on a collision course with our own


Approximately 3,000,000,000 AD: Our galaxy is undergoing a full-scale collision and merger with the considerably larger Andromeda galaxy, at approximately 300,000 mph

Sol system could find itself near the center of the newly forming child galaxy of the two giants, and highly vulnerable to exploding supernovae and increased cometary impacts. There's also the near certainty that the massive black holes at the cores of both galaxies would seek to merge somewhere near our location as well. The resulting chaos and energy would make the night sky on planets like Earth nearly as bright as day. The gravity-based acrobatics of this time might even result in Earth's solar system being flung out into intergalactic space-- which might save it from the worst of a core merger, but put much more distance between it and neighboring star systems. The impact of such gravitic distortions on the level of individual lifeforms possibly inhabiting Sol system at the time is uncertain. The process may be so gradual that effects are imperceptible-- or they could be literally earth-shaking and even rate as mass extinction threats.
Due to more localized catastrophes by this time, humanity or its progeny are likely to be extinct, living altogether elsewhere, or at least moved off Earth onto planets further out from the Sun within the local system.


Approximately 3,500,000,000 AD to 5,000,000,000 AD: The Earth is becoming so hot from the warmer, swelling red giant which used to be a much friendlier Sun, that it is becoming impossible for high biological life to survive on the planet without advanced technological aids


The Sun is exhausting its hydrogen fuel supply and therefore exiting the main sequence of star life; it soon begins to swell into a red giant
Beyond this point it begins to redden and swell, eventually growing large enough to swallow Mercury. Around this time Venus loses its atmosphere, and its surface is roasted. Earth will not be far behind, as the Sun continues to swell. There's the possibility that by this time a close encounter between an alien star and Earth's solar system has disturbed the orbit of Jupiter, perhaps slingshotting Earth out of the system and into interstellar space, to become a rogue planet. This might save Earth from the worst charring-- replacing burning with death by freezing.

Approximately 7,000,000,000 AD: The Sun is collapsing into a white dwarf star

Approximately 10,000,000,000 AD: By now the hybrid Andromeda/Milky Way galaxy has collided with and begun absorbing the lesser galaxies of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds


10,000,000,000 AD- 60,000,000,000 AD: The Sun is a steadily cooling white dwarf star. It cools sufficiently that life may actually develop upon the Sun


Approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000 AD (One followed by 15 zeroes): The "Degenerate Era" of the Universe begins

White dwarfs and brown dwarfs are dominating the stellar landscape. Black holes and neutron stars comprise most of the rest of the Universe's mass now. Most other galactic stars have ended in collisions with others or slowly burnt out. There remains the corpses of cold dead planets spread across every galaxy-- although they are eventually widing up for the most part inside black holes. Births of new stars are occuring at a negligible rate, as the galaxies are running on empty in regards to hydrogen gas.
Eventually dark matter becomes the main fuel of the remaining solar furnaces.

As this Era progresses, the surviving stars gradually become cooler and cooler, until at some point the temperatures are sufficiently low to support life (yes, temperatures comparable to planets). The white dwarfs also boast plenty of heavy elements from which life might form, and enormous spans of time within which such development could occur. The brown dwarfs too may offer harbors for new life development.

Approximately 10,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 AD (One followed by 40 zeroes): The "Black Hole Era" of the Universe begins

All the dark matter has been consumed. The decay of protons and neutrons has resulted in the collapse of most mass into its constituent atomic particles, but for black holes. Even black holes evaporate, via Hawking radiation. Such radiation is now the biggest energy source for the Universe as a whole. There may be lifeforms structured from various combinations of black holes now. The very low free energies of this time might impose severe restrictions on the living processes of such entities however-- in effect making them very, very slow to respond to stimuli.

Approximately 100, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 AD (One followed by 101 zeroes): The "Dark Era" of the Universe begins


The last of the greatest black holes in the universe has evaporated to nothing by way of Hawking radiation. The still expanding universe has become cold and extremely dilute. There are virtually no concentrations of free energy left, and enormous distances between appreciable mass concentrations (and we're talking possibly microscopic mass accumulations here-- objects like planets, asteroids, and stars no longer exist; their very mass has decayed into their constituent atomic elements).

This may represent the long, drawn out end of the universe-- ending with a whimper rather than a bang. Or, it may set the stage for the universe to make a phase change of sorts to a whole new reality. Physicists speculate that sometime during this Era the terribly low energy state of the universe might enable it at last to tap into the energy of the quantum vacuum-- and thereby perform a 're-set' of sorts for the universe entire. That is, a wholly new universe, with a fresh and different set of physical laws, might spring into being. Perhaps even via a repeat of the Big Bang

Originally posted by kinglizard

Originally posted by Jade Falcon
3. The only way to not be able to escape the black hole would be if we enter it's even horizon, which is very small (orbit of mercury I presume?)

This statement is not all together true, although I know why you think this. Try to follow me. The center of our galaxy is a supermassave black hole, it�s gravity has a tight grip on the material closest to it. The material closest to it has influence on the stuff next to it, and so on until we reach the edge of the galaxy. When the black hole consumes the stuff closest to it , the stuff next to that is moved closer to the black hole, like a conveyer belt. If you look at the galaxy like everything is connected to everything with bungee cords you will see that we can�t escape the back hole.

I know where you are going with this, look at this way.

Think of the "super massive black hole" as a pea. And the center of the galaxy as one mile in diamter. Then, the spiral arms would reach about 15 miles. Since most of the mass is in that square mile, a black hole could theoretically swallow that given billions and billions of years. However, it will be insanely difficult for it to continue to propegate because those 15 miles are very sparse. Besides that fact, our angular momentum counteracts the force of it's gravity. Just like the earth's momentum counteracts the suns gravity. Now, if the sun grew 100 miles in size, we will still be spinning fast enough to escape it's pull.


Or think of it this way, F = G * M1*M2/ r^2.

Two balls atract each other. Let's say they are 1 mile apart, and there force is 1 , if the distance is doubled to two miles, then it's force would decrease by one forth, to .25, if it doubles again, it would decrease again by one fourth, and so forth. ...


I think that you are seeing the galaxy as closely spaced, though it is actually mostly empty. When the Andromena galaxy collides with us, it will be like a ghost passing through. though there is still a small chance that it could affect us.

Nothing else makes any sense. The black hole feeds, grows and powers the galaxy.

If, in fact, there is a supermassive black hole at the center of every galaxy, then scientists first questions would be: What is the relationship between supermassive black holes and galaxies?, Do supermassive black holes have an effect on the formation of a galaxy? Scientists believe that quasars and the supermassive black holes they encompass are the nuclear engines that power many galaxies. It is possible that these massive engines pull in the stars and gasses and power the process that spins these galaxies. It is believed that as these masses are pulled in they release great amounts of energy in the form gamma and x-ray bursts.

www.users.muohio.edu...

[Edited on 6-4-2004 by kinglizard]