Nothing lasts forever, even this world that we call home and currently know to be the only place in all of existence to harbor life. In this article appearing in The New York Times scientists project that Earth has about 7.59 billion years left before it is swallowed by our inflated and dying Sun. It might seem kind of a depressing thing to think about, the fact that Earth will eventually be completely destroyed, but then again 7.59 Billion years is a really really long time. In all honesty it is being pretty optimistic to think that humans will even be around in that long a time period. And say, even if there are beings that are descended from humans or something like that, none of us presently alive have even the most remote chance of lasting for several billion more years. And here is another fact to chew on, even if somehow, some human something-or-other, survives the fate of Earth they won’t be able to survive the fate of the Universe which eventual will face death by either fire, ice, or being literally torn apart (all depending on things like speed of expansion and the actual mass of the Universe). Things end, not a lot we can do about it. Personally I don’t find it all that depressing, more just fascinating and inevitable.
7.59 Billion Years . . . Goodbye Earth
Published March 11, 2008 General , article 4 CommentsTags: Earth, space, sun, universe
I personally think, being a Christian, that even if humans say that the earth will be destroyed in 7.59 billion years that God will make it happen sometime before this.In waht way does Man have any way of knowing when this will happen. wouldn’t it just be enough to accept the fact that we all won’t live forever on earth and that the earh won’t live forever in the universe. Seriously nothing lives forever, and we do not know the time nor place. Even if we did what could we do about it when we do finally realize that the earth is being pulled into the earth like they say, it probaly will be too late to do anything about it.But one thing that we can be sure of is that in 7.59 billion years no body from this era will be alive to see the earth at its final moments. And by 7.59 billion years this “theory” will be dis-proved, itmight even be disproved in a few months like everything else that scientist come up with to make us depressed and worry about, not saying that scientist try to make our lives miserable just that before you publish something maybe you should make sure that its 100% accurate. JUST SAYIN’!
I agree that to a certian degree it seems a bit futile and silly to be making claims about when the Earth or the Universe will come to an end. In all honesty I think there is very little that would be able to be done about it one way or the other and so money spent on the research might be better spent in other ways. But I still find it fascinating that modern technology and advancements in science are allowing us to further understand things like the life of stars, especially our personal star, tha Sun.
It’s always fun looking at people demonstrating how little they understand science – or even basic logic – in comments.
Here we have one who wants 100% certainty before even starting a discussion, apparently both unaware that nothing is 100% certain (if only because the hypothesis that “I am hallucinating everything” is not testable) and that there’s no point in considering axiomatic ideas; if it isn’t subject to discussion, why talk about it?
The next thinks that money is being spent on “research” into projected future events, rather than projections being an essentially-free side-product of research into the universe as it currently exists. Research which, incidentally, has yielded an enormous number of useful results. If it hadn’t, no one could be posting comments on blogs.
Okay, so here’s my theories from all the things I’ve learned in my 26 years… From all the documentries, all the info out there, all the science I’ve learned:
People of the Earth started life with evolution. The right combination of chemicals and conditions made it just right for animals to evolve, and men from apes, and all that jazz.
Fast forward. Now we have druids and pagans and what-not worshiping the Earth. The along came the aliens. (Not the typical Mars aliens that everyone thinks of, but real human-looking people. Basically, the people we look like today.) So now you have these primitave men, these more evolved men, and these new pepople. These new people came from a world like our own that was dying out, and they needed a new world to move into. (Keep reading to the end of our world to see what I mean.) So they throw our world into a bigger advancement.
Now we have the Egyptians, Romans, Greek, etc. Now, instead of people worshiping the Earth, they are worshiping individuals (these new people) as Gods. Mankind learns new things, gains more knowledge, holds more values and ideals. Then along comes Christianity.
Fast forward to the way we are living now. Man has come a long way. Technology is making so many things more possible, but it’s also killing our planet. Scientists say we have 7.59 billion years left to survive, but we’re killing ourselvs off faster than that with pollution, over-use of our resources, and man killing man.
Luckily we found out that in the solar system of Eridanus, there is a sun called Epsilon Eridani that is very much like our own sun only younger, with a confirmed planet called Epsilon Eridani B that is very much like Earth, also very much younger. This comes in handy later on…
Possible future – mankind decides to ‘go green’, as many people have started doing already. We find new cleaner ways to be more efficiant and people try to mend their ways with the world and stop polluting it. Once again, we turn to worshiping our Earth and taking care of it as we had before.
Fast forward to billions of years. The time is coming for the Earth to be scorched by the by the ever-growing sun. It’s time to find a new home. Luckily, that planet Epsilon Eridani B has also had time to grow and mature, becoming just suitable enough for humans to live among the current inhabitants of that world. The advanced humans have come up with a way to space travel to that new planet that will be called home.
That’s all I have so far… It’s the only way I can explain why the world works the way it does in my own mind…