Science You’ll Feel the Earth Move
posted by on October 23 at 11:00 AM
The problem: The Earth is going to die.
The Sun is slowly getting warmer as it burns the hydrogen in its core. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will begin evolving into a bloated red giant. Its outer gas shell will swell up, engulfing the Earth by the time it reaches its peak size and brightness 7 billion years from now.But long before that,, raising average terrestrial temperatures to around 50 °C (120 °F). That will warm the oceans so much that they evaporate without boiling, like a pan of water left on a sunny kitchen counter.
The solution: Move the Earth, with a humongous, solar-powered kite.
That danger could be avoided by using a giant solar sail, says Colin McInnes, a mechanical engineer at the University of Strathclyde.Solar sails are thin, mirror-like films that are propelled by the weak pressure of the sunlight that falls on them. McInnes’s idea is to put a free-floating solar sail at a point near the Earth where the pressure of solar radiation essentially balances the Earth’s gravitational pull.
His analysis shows that the reflection of sunlight from the sail will pull the Earth outwards along with the sail – in physical terms, increasing the Earth’s orbital energy and accelerating the centre of mass of the system outwards, away from the Sun.
A sailor’s life for us.
Why don't we start worrying about when the universe contracts and collapses back on itself. That'll happen in, what, several hundred billion years? Get cracking, scientists, the future of the universe is at stake!
After the red giant collapses into a white dwarf, what do we do THEN? Huh huh?
In 5 billion years there is a good chance we will not exist. We have been on this planet in this form for such a short amount of time. 5 billion years is more than enough time for evolution to move on and reinvent itself many times over with other versions of life. We will just be a footnote. Moving the planet a little further from a dying sun is just postponing the inevitable. But then thinking about this concept is just us placing ourselves with the help of our imagination in this future scenario. We are just creating a little fear in out heads for no reason at all because we will not be there.
So enjoy your time in the here and now.
Go watch some porn, pray to a god or not, create something cool anything that makes life interesting now. Forget about 5 billion years hence.
Will we not have mastered space travel in 5 billion years? At least well enough to move out to some other planet in the solar system? A hotter sun would make mars a nice place to hang out, no?
Seven billion years, huh? Can we perhaps put this one off a bit? The way I see it either A) Global warming or nuclear war or SOMETHING will kill us all off long before this is a problem or B) If we manage to survive for, say, a billion years, we'll have so much unimaginable science at our disposal that this problem will be pretty trivial. And still six billion years to solve it!
Oh shit! At the rate the human race is destroying itself and it's planet's resources, we won't have a thing to worry about. Besides that, the dinosaurs lasted one hundred and sixty million years until an asteroid destroyed them. People have been around only a few million. Something will come along anytime that will finish us off long before the sun burns out.
That's how they solved global warming in an episode of Futurama.
ok, maybe I'm missing something here and maybe I'm over thinking this ridiculous idea too much.
What, exactly, do you attach a planet sized solar sail to? Forget the fact that it would have to be a bolt so strong that you could pull a planet with it, not to mention the million mile long cable. Where do you attach it? Bolt it to a mountain and you'd either wind the cable around the planet as it spins or stop the planets rotation. Put it at the North or South poles and you'll screw up the axis. Seriously WTF?!?
Yes, I'm over thinking it.
In other sun-related news: This year has been very good for the Sun's complexion. There have been no sunspots for the longest period in decades.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm
I also wonder how the change in the length of our year would effect things.
When I was little they showed this happening on 3-2-1 Contact. It scared me shitless b/c I thought it was going to happen, like, the next day. Curse you, science!
This is Seattle. If we don't set up the blue-ribbon advisory exploratory committee NOW, we'll never make that deadline 5 billion years hence.
I'm reading a book about all the ways the earth will (could) be destroyed. It's called Death from the Skies, by Phil Plait. It's fun, if you like being scared.
If we are still around in 5 billion years, I'm looking forward to the human race having the ability to move planet-sized objects with only the power of their genitalia.
My cock can move planets!
So this will really become an issue in what, three billion years? Whereas maybe two hundred years from now, we can start moving to Mars.
What's the problem again?
Besides, all we need to move the Earth is a really long lever, right? Haven't you read your classics?
The Vogons will have demolished your planet long before then.
If you're interested in solar sails, you should check out this brand new book - http://tinyurl.com/6ks2to
@14 I once dated a guy whose cock could move planets. He moved my moon real good.(well?)
@16... and a place to stand.
Well shit, forget that plan then.
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