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Old 08-7-2005, 04:08 AM   #1
J8555
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Default The Super Nova!...and all that jazz

After recently taking an Astronomy course, I started to think more about the whole picture. Many people live their daily lives rarely thinking about how vast the universe is. People live their lives running around looking at certain errands and events as holding the utmost importance, seldom coming to the realization that what we do is in fact very miniscule in the whole aspect of the universe. The size of the universe is huge, and when comparing the earth or even our solar system, we really are quite petite. People for the most part are rightly so in not thinking about this much during our lives. Why dwell on it? It’s depressing.

Our solar system, from what we “know” is located in one of the arms of what we call a Spiral Galaxy. The Earth is positioned just the right distance from the Sun, which allows life on Earth. Most people know that a star goes through a life cycle, as any living thing does. After a star is “born” it continues to expand over a long period of time. Nebula-> Protostar -> Red Giant-> Planetary Nebula-> White Dwarf/Black Dwarf, with variables in between. Eventually a star’s life ends. Our Sun is currently still in the stage of Protostar. There’s some large number like 50 million years before the Sun will have fully reached Red Giant stage.

And now finally to the point, the reason for all this long drawn out mumbo-jumbo:
The theory is that as the sun expands, it will eventually grow so large that it will come much closer to Mercury, Venus, Earth, and beyond. Now all life will have been wiped out before this, due to the extreme heat. Following this everything would become much colder since the sun will have died out, making Earth very chilly. This is what the eventual end is supposedly going to be.

The whole point of this is to address that the inevitable end of life on Earth will be the end of the Sun. This is unless of course we’re blown up, or destroyed in some other way before the sun dies. Basically what I’m getting at is that wars between countries, extreme weather changes, and other major events do definitely effect people, but the greatest obstacle man will face appears to the Sun ending it’s lifecycle, ceasing all life on earth.

Now, there really isn’t a point for us to worry about it now, as it won’t effect us in our lifetime, or our children’s lifetime, or farther down the road than that, but some 50 million years from now, all life will be faced with this dilemma. My main interest on this subject is what will happen at that point. No one really thinks about mankind actually ceasing to exist unless you’re watching some fiction movie or something. If we were faced with something like that now, there would be nothing anyone could do. There is simply nothing that could be done to stop it. The question is will there be something that can be done 50 million years down the line? It’s not even conceivable of “stopping” the Sun from doing this. 50 million years is a long time for technology to evolve, but is it long enough to come up with a way to defeat the inevitable? Will there be flying spaceships and teleports at this point that can take man out of the solar system to a safer place? How far will mankind evolve, and will the end of the Sun end mankind as well?

What do you think? Any thoughts pertaining to this subject at all? Discuss! = )
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Old 08-7-2005, 04:49 AM   #2
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Default Re: The Super Nova!...and all that jazz

Quote:
Originally Posted by J8555
People live their lives running around looking at certain errands and events as holding the utmost importance, seldom coming to the realization that what we do is in fact very miniscule in the whole aspect of the universe.
Yes, but what we do is vast and grand in the scheme of our lives. There's no reason to care about how we affect the universe as individuals or even as a race.

Quote:
Originally Posted by J8555
Why dwell on it? It’s depressing.
No, it's just a waste of time.

Quote:
Originally Posted by J8555
The Earth is positioned just the right distance from the Sun, which allows life on Earth.
Well, life as we know it, but yeah.

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Originally Posted by J8555
My main interest on this subject is what will happen at that point.
Mankind will cease to exist.

Quote:
Originally Posted by J8555
No one really thinks about mankind actually ceasing to exist
Why should anyone?

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Originally Posted by J8555
The question is will there be something that can be done 50 million years down the line? It’s not even conceivable of “stopping” the Sun from doing this. 50 million years is a long time for technology to evolve, but is it long enough to come up with a way to defeat the inevitable? Will there be flying spaceships and teleports at this point that can take man out of the solar system to a safer place? How far will mankind evolve, and will the end of the Sun end mankind as well?
I think we'll be able to move elsewhere, but nobody can tell what'll happen that far in the future. As for the sun, I hardly think we'd be able to stop it and that we'd want to.

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What do you think? Any thoughts pertaining to this subject at all? Discuss! = )
What's to discuss?

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Old 08-7-2005, 08:10 AM   #3
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Default RE: Re: The Super Nova!...and all that jazz

Do you have ANY idea how long 50 million years is? Do you have any idea how long 1 million or even 10,000 years is? I would be VERY surprised if we haven't moved or expanded to other planets even 1000 years from now. Didn't think about that did you? We're not STUCK on Earth :P. If mankind still exists 50 million years from now, chances are we will have destroyed Earth already or it will be too small to hold us all.
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Old 08-7-2005, 01:59 PM   #4
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GuidoHunter-
Quote:
Yes, but what we do is vast and grand in the scheme of our lives. There's no reason to care about how we affect the universe as individuals or even as a race.
Yes, well that's a given. I meant for it not to belittle the actions we do which are in fact important in our lives, but rather to lead on to my point.

Quote:
No, it's just a waste of time.
Yeah, true. I suppose it would be a waste of time too.

Quote:
Why should anyone?
Well, anyone who cares about the human race surviving I suppose. But yeah, most aren't concerned about this and don't have to be.

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I think we'll be able to move elsewhere, but nobody can tell what'll happen that far in the future. As for the sun, I hardly think we'd be able to stop it and that we'd want to.
That's why all of this is of course, mere speculation if even that. There's no telling what things will be like in the future. And about the Sun stopping, that was a joke. I seriously doubt the Sun could be stopped or that we would want to stop it even that far into the future. Sorry for being unclear. Thus leaving other options for humans to exist by travelling to some other planet, which sounds straight out of SciFi, but really there wouldn't be much other alternative.
As for what to discuss, anything vaguely related to the subject, kinda like you just did.

stlunatic0124-
Yes, it's a lot of time. Who knows how developed technology will be at that point. Right now to reach the closest star would take forever! much less a habitable planet that could sustain life as we know it. Who knows, people could discover some way to make planets sustain life that would be uninhabitable. People could develop faster and easier ways of traveling into space. Right now just to enter space costs tons of money, time, and work.

People used to think the world was flat. Some believe the moon landing was staged. What we "know" now, could be very different from what we "think" later on, as new theories arise and challenge what we already know.
It's all just speculation and assumption of what could happen.

Thanks for posting.
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Old 08-7-2005, 02:15 PM   #5
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Something will kill mankind off before that; i.e meteor, reversing of the magnetic field, alien attack, nuclear wars etc.
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Old 08-7-2005, 02:36 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tps222
Something will kill mankind off before that...reversing of the magnetic field
Hasn't killed us off yet.

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Old 08-7-2005, 03:54 PM   #7
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Yea, but look at people back then, they were big furry 400 pound monkey-looking things. Which brings up a question, could our growing obesity lead to our survival?
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Old 08-7-2005, 10:53 PM   #8
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By that time, we'll invent a way to keep ourselves from dying.

50 million years is QUITE a long time, even though it's closer to billions of years until the sun nova's, right?
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Old 08-8-2005, 03:27 AM   #9
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The Sun will start entering it's Red Giant phase in 4-5 billion years. Not 50 million. The Sun will expand to about Earth's rotation, but the Earth will probably be pushed further away before this happens, so Earth will probably not be engulfed.

Quote:
Do you have ANY idea how long 50 million years is?
It is hard to comprehend. But in geological terms, it isnt that long. I mean, the dinosaurs became extinct only 65 million years ago.

I seriously do think in 50 million years, Humans will have outgrown the Earth. Assuming we still exist that is. By then we will probably have evolved into super-beings, with super-brains and super-technology that the thought of interplanetary travel is no more insane than going to the market to pick up some taco fixings.

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but the greatest obstacle man will face appears to the Sun ending it’s lifecycle, ceasing all life on earth.
I honestly wouldnt call it an obstacle, since it cant be helped...it is more or less a dead end (PUNS!). It's kind of like driving off a cliff. You know the ground is getting closer. Slam on the brakes as hard as you want, scream, cry, flail even, but that ain't going to stop the ground from getting any closer. Until SMACK, you have hit the ground and die in a explosion (because everything that happens in movies happens in real life).

Don't worry about the Sun.
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Old 08-8-2005, 10:58 AM   #10
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Well, basically one of our options is to develop our interplanetary traveling skills, and eventually evacuate earth to another planet before it gets uninhabitable..

if in theory the sun will get bigger, then won't the other planets in the system start to become more inhabitable? even if the air content or temperature isnt quite right, we can build sealed colonies on planets... we can have our own agricultural systems, expand to new planets..
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Old 08-8-2005, 05:51 PM   #11
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The sun getting bigger would mess with the positions of the planets. We might find ourselves 5 billion miles closer.
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Old 08-8-2005, 05:55 PM   #12
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We're only 149 million miles away.......

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Old 08-8-2005, 06:08 PM   #13
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But how many miles are there that we can go, in the opposite direction of the sun? hmm?
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Old 08-9-2005, 10:33 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GuidoHunter
We're only 149 million miles away.......

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Toché.
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Old 08-9-2005, 12:57 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GuidoHunter
We're only 149 million miles away.......

--Guido

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I learned that it was 93 million miles...

Oh. 149 million kilometers.

And everyone, don't forget that after the Sun finishes its red giant phase (after 100 million years, I think?) it starts losing its outer layers, throwing them all off in an expanding gaseous shell. It's not as dramatic as a supernova, but it's still going to bombard Earth (and every other planet) with tons of heat and radiation for a long time.

And then it becomes a white dwarf, but I don't think that poses many problems to surviving humans.
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Old 08-9-2005, 11:40 PM   #16
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Uh, whatever. Billions of years from now we won't be here. Have you even thought about what has happened on earth in the past 100 years? Not only have we nearly destroyed it, we've also become 10000000000x more advanced technologically.

You also make it sound like we require a proper planet to live on. Remember, even say, in 500 years, we would probably be able to 1. Create our own atmosphere. 2. Live without a planet if we wanted to anyway, basically, a giant city in space.

Thats not even talking about a million years. With the leaps and bounds of understanding in physics in the past even...50 years, I wouldn't be surprised by space bending warp technology before 3000 ad. And that's assuming we don't destroy ourselves first. Which is a big if, because, if we keep going in the direction we are we'll be billions of years ahead of the suns game.
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Old 08-10-2005, 12:04 AM   #17
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Technology won't be the limiting factor of terraforming planets or packing up and moving; energy will.

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Old 08-10-2005, 12:54 AM   #18
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Think about energy sources we don't know about.

Money...limits pretty much everything too. Such and such is too expensive to actually go through with ect ect...=/
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