It Will Swallow the Earth
68How many of you know that, in about five billion years or so, at the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow the Earth. After a billion years as a red giant, it will suddenly collapse into a white dwarf -- the final end product of a star like ours. It may take a trillion years to cool off completely.
Long before that, Over the next hundreds of millions of years, the sun will continue to get brighter until eventually, Earth will become too hot to inhabit. We have, in terms of geological time, very little time to get our act together and escape the fetters of an earthbound existence, if we are to become a successful species.
Professor Hawking, the world's best known cosmologist, theorizes that the only way the human species can survive is to colonize space.
If we were to continue to exist for another billion years, we might be able to create energy sources that could propel us at about 3% of the speed of light (only a supposition). That would mean that we could reach a star, lets say Alpha Centauri which is about 4.365 light years away in about 30 years. We'd better be able to do better than that. Consider that our Milky Way galaxy approximates 125 - 150 thousand light years in diameter and that there exist about 200 - 400 billion stars in it, each star may have planets revolving around them! How many generations of humanity would it take to explore even a small percentage of the possibilities in a search for planets which we could inhabit? Forget it! The human body cannot withstand the destablizing effects of lengthy space travel.
We would necessarily have to be kept in incubators in a perpetual state of sleep. All our body functions monitored and reduced to the point of death. We are inherently, slaves to "Mother Earth.
As we exist, that kind of space exploration would be impossible. Man will, out of necessity, have to genetically engineer new species of "humans" consisting of protoplasm, metal elements, nano technology, etc., and infuse into the new species brains, the abilities future computers will possess. This is the only form of human life that will be able to withstand the rigors of staying awake and spending many generations of existence in a space craft.
Life span will have been increased, New generations of humanity will be cloned and the only sickness that could be known is an implanted computer virus. We will necessarily have to create "cyborgs" with computers linked to there brains to prevent "intelligent" computers from taking over.
Space travel will be tedious using spaceships travelling slower than light, but a "warp drive' such as seen in the in Star Trek can't be ruled out.
If a planet cannot be found that will nurture human life then we will have to live aboard space craft and develop internal biospheres wherein food of the type necessary to support "human" life can be grown and cultured.
There is much , much more to be considered. First we must, in some manner, come together as a species and work in concert to realize all that will be necessary to leave this planet and continue to evolve.
As you study the activities of contemporary humanity, what do you think is our potential, as a species, for surviving long enough to be witness to all that I have written about above? Or are we, who have no natural enemies but bacteria and ourselves, destined to become one of the trillions of life forms which were not able to adapt and joined the ranks of the extinct? hmmmm?
Qwark
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Will we? Won't we? is the question perhaps. Like you said, does it really matter? And yet, I suppose the will to evolve has been coded into us - so maybe.....
I think we will destroy the earth before the sun gets to us.
Hi Coldwar...unfortunatey, again, I must agree with you. IF we make it another century, i wont be surprised, I'll be, once again, a swirl of cosmic dust awash in the currents of the cold Pacific Japanese currents heading South and it wont matter one way or another ..to me.. :-)
hi toad..Old Mother earth has survived far greater cataclysms than man can produce...I think she'll be here long after we have become just a memory...a memory?...for whom?...thanks for the reply..:-)
Hi Shalini....all life is genetically coded to exist, but survival? Trillions have become extinct. If we dont wise up, we may join them....thanks for the response
Qwark, the means whereby you suggest we save ourselves are a type of annihilation, too. We have to fuse nanotechnology with protoplasm in order to get a creature that can withstand the journey? Then what's the point of looking for a planet that can sustain human life, if we're not human by the time we get there?
Hi Aya:
We will necessarily have to be a "new" species of human.
To be able to endure space travel, we will have to genetically engineer a species of human comprised of all I described and more. As we are, we cannot exist and procreate in space craft that will spend many, many generations travelling and searching.
If man exists to participate in that which is necessary to save the species: a journey into deep space, he will not resemble contemporary man. Man will have been completely metamorphosed into a form of human life that has been adapted to live a life in space.
Qwark
Qwark, in that case, why not just send computers? Why do we need biological life at all?
We better colonize space far enough away from any star that will go red giant. We don't want to have to pick up and move every trillion years.
We better colonize space far enough away from any star that will go red giant. We don't want to have to pick up and move every trillion years.
Nicomp, you really plan ahead!
I know what a pain it is to pack up the hotel room at the end of vacation.
Hi Aya:
Thanks for asking.
The "goal" is to preserve "human" life.
That doesn't mean that we must remain "pure."
If "blessed" with time, the "conscious" human animal will blend many facets of "reality" into it's attempts to survive by creating an adaptive "human" able to eventually leave a dying earth.
I have written a "hub" concerning life of the future.
Give "Bow" a hug for me..:-)
Qwark
Hi Nincomp:
First, lets "hope" we humans last long enuf to make the trip.
Thanks for the response.
Qwark
Hi Aya:
I have written a "hub" titled: "The Reward," which pretty much covers cosmic life.
Again, thanks for your responses.
Qwark
Well written Qwark, although I am not sure that such modifications will be needed if science can discover a method of FTL (faster than light) travel. The problems of course are protection, fuel, and gravity but technology has a funny way of proving the immpossible possible if givin enough time and resourses. The one thing that holds true about humans is this: If there is profit, someone will figure it out. Although, from what we (humans) have done so far to this planet is an example of what will be done to other worlds, I am not sure that we should and that our doom is something that needs to happen. Perhaps future generations will have learned from the mistakes of the past, but I am thinking...not so much.
Hi Trooper:
"IF" man exists long enough to prove that space can be "warped," drastically shortening the distances to cosmic entities. exceeding the speed of light would not reduce travel to the point "contemporary" man would be able to survive.
"IF" we attempt to travel distances measured in terms of hundreds of thousands of trillions of earth miles, It will become an absolute necessity for "man" to genetically engineer, to "create." "new" species of "human." There is no doubt about that.
As we exist, we are "genetically/physiologically, slaves to Mother earth.
Qwark
Hi Trooper:
"IF" man exists long enough to prove that space can be "warped," drastically shortening the distances to cosmic entities, he may be able to make the trips...but exceeding the speed of light would not reduce travel time to the point "contemporary" man would be able to survive.
"IF" we attempt to travel distances measured in terms of hundreds of thousands of trillions of earth miles, It will become an absolute necessity for "man" to genetically engineer, to "create." "new" species of "human." There is no doubt about that.
As we exist, we are "genetically/physiologically, slaves to Mother earth.
Qwark
I agree with the transhumanist notions contained here, Ray kurzeil predicts the singularity in 2045, I am optimistic. I think mans purpose should be to prepare the way for ai. Ai will then colonist the universe, converting it's entirety into computing substrate, every sun, world, piece of matter and energy.
Antecessor:
I like your responses...TY!
Humankind will be, must be "reduced" in numbers.
Kurzeil is way too optimistic.
2045 is but a moment away.
I have Written about the "singularity."
What I prognosticate is 'light years" beyond the kurziel "transhumanist." No one seems to be able to visualize/understand it as I see it.
Even the "transhumanist" he describes cannot happen until the predatory genetic programming in extant man is sublimated by mutation and time.
Evolution in "complex" organisms takes hundreds of thousands of years for significant changes to be realized.
In a cosmos that can only be defined in terms beyond googolplex thought, hundreds of thousands of years is a miniscule, quantum, but perceivable concept... my "singularity" is not.
In 5 billion years the Earth will have undergone such drastic changes geologically that it would be unrecognizable to people living here now. Plate techtonics will have shuffled the continents around and the magnetic poles will have switched at least a couple of times.
The super lava dome under much of Western North America will have burst through and created a hundred year winter that will probably wipe out 99% of the Earth's species.
If anything survives, another round of evolution would give the next intelligent species to rule the Earth time to devise an escape plan in time to deal with the Sun's expansion and the Earth's immolation...but man will have been extinct and forgotten long before.
CP
Hi Chris:
I appreciate ya reading this "HUB" and responding.
Man cannot exist for more than another oh, about 1 1/2 billion yrs. Beyond that, the surface of Mother Earth will become so hot, that the possibility of life as we know it will become impossible...except for, maybe, bacteria.
Not only will our sun be running low on fuel, we have the galaxy Andromeda bearing down on us and sometime about 5 billion years from now, she will collide with our Milkyway and over a few more billions of years a brand new monster galaxy will result because of the amalgamation of both.
If the possibility of man escaping this planet exists, he will have to do it within the next billion or so years.
I agree with you that man will most likely become extinct long before all that happens.
Thanks again Chris.
Qwark
ColdWarBaby 2 years ago
Well Qwark, I think your closing is the most probable scenario.
The species Homo sapiens has largely refused to adapt to the environment, preferring to bend it to whatever uses are perceived as desirable at any given time with no concern for the long-term consequences.
As a result of living such an artificial existence, we are ill equipped to survive in the face of natural forces to which we are no longer equipped to adapt.
When one considers that, combined with our reckless pillaging of available finite resources, the future doesn’t hold much promise for the human race. I frankly doubt that we will last long enough to make any serious ventures into deep space. To be perfectly honest, I find it unlikely that the species will be extant in any significant numbers even a hundred years from now.
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Hawking. For the species to survive into the distant future would absolutely require the colonization of distant galaxies. A means of bending the space-time fabric would be essential.
Then again, considering your genetically engineered and mechanically augmented humans, maybe we’re destined to become the alien species from the movie Independence Day. Intergalactic locusts roaming the universe in planet-sized colony ships, stripping all the resources from every planet we come upon, wiping out all life, intelligent or otherwise in the process.
Hmm, sounds like we won’t really need to change all that much.