Next you have the problem of the suns energy. The sun gives us 1.74 x 10 ^ 17 watts of energy constantly. Our biggest Nuclear Reactor produces 8 x 10^9 watts of energy. So we would need 21,750,000 of our best nuclear reactors running constantly to produce enough heat to give a normal life - post-event. Except we can't use nuclear fission because we'd quickly run out of Uranium.
Astronomy & Space Exploration
- Thread starter MrMarcello
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On a 10-year timescale, the biggest thing we need to prepare for is the fact that almost the entirety of our species is going to die in the immediate aftermath of the event — how will that impact wider politics and human interaction? Like, in an ideal world, there would be a concerted global effort and we would centralize our collective energies, but given how exclusionary the erstwhile elites tend to be, the countries and people that are the most disfranchised and need the most help from a technological/preparatory standpoint will most likely receive the least amount of help — and they might decide to nuke others as a parting feck you...instead of going down with a whimper (provided the elites don't nuke them first). I'd personally much rather trust private efforts than “Save Humanity” brigades fostered by governments, but that private clubs will be very exclusive and limited to the wealthiest and most influential. All things considered, I don't think we can prepare for that event, really — the scale of even our greatest feats is incredibly small. We might be able to prepare for a few thousand people at the max by going deep and leeching off geothermal energy (mostly politicians and businessmen — and engineers/geologists/doctors to keep them alive).
As for the event itself and the end-of-days, how long can we survive underground, and what quality of life will the survivors have, and can they lead a rejuvenation? If we're sufficiently close to the other planet, we'll have to worry about crazy geological activity via tidal heating as well — how will the survivors navigate underground life in that hellish situation when we can't really predict the post-event volcanology of Earth?
Hmm...I actually think that instead of trying to salvage a lost cause on Earth, humanity would be better served migrating to Mars in the hundreds and thousands, if possible: negligible O2 and fairly low temperatures and not a whole lot of protection from radiation compared to current Earth, but it at least have a Sun and a somewhat stable environment compared with grim future that “Rogue Earth” is in for. Given enough time, I reckon re-population on Mars is more realistic than medium to long term survival on an ejected Earth.
Impossible, in my opinion — the L1 point is further away from the Earth than even the Moon...
You would need a proportionately larger (relative to the moon which casts an umbral shadow of just ~250 km) reflector/blocker to influence the oceans to a noticeable degree (https://rechneronline.de/sehwinkel/angular-diameter.php). I doubt we could build something of that magnitude (and successfully put it into orbit) in a century. Even if we cleverly place a lens with a short focal length at the L1 point or perhaps a diffraction apparatus, the whole structure will have to be hundreds of miles across (again not very realistic and more in the realm of science fiction at our current level).
@Invictus
Okay, L1 point is out. So we'll definitely be hit with tidal wave after tidal wave decimating our coastal cities.
Keeping people calm in the 10 year run up will be important. Even if realistically, our best chance of keeping humanity alive is sending approx 1000 people to mars with as much equipment as we can give them, to so that will require the entire economy going. We need to make the rockets and the fuel and the food for everyone who is working on the Mars project.
Earth's mantle should stay hot for tens of millennia. As you say digging underground is likely our best option. How deep can we dig, how warm will it be, and how many people can we save?
How will get food and electricity down there? If we are only saving 0.001% of humanity, then nuclear fission is an option. With energy we can grow food and stay warm. With food we can survive.
What will happen to the atmosphere? How long until it gets so cold that the components start to freeze
I think humanity can survive this though
Okay, L1 point is out. So we'll definitely be hit with tidal wave after tidal wave decimating our coastal cities.
Keeping people calm in the 10 year run up will be important. Even if realistically, our best chance of keeping humanity alive is sending approx 1000 people to mars with as much equipment as we can give them, to so that will require the entire economy going. We need to make the rockets and the fuel and the food for everyone who is working on the Mars project.
Earth's mantle should stay hot for tens of millennia. As you say digging underground is likely our best option. How deep can we dig, how warm will it be, and how many people can we save?
How will get food and electricity down there? If we are only saving 0.001% of humanity, then nuclear fission is an option. With energy we can grow food and stay warm. With food we can survive.
What will happen to the atmosphere? How long until it gets so cold that the components start to freeze
I think humanity can survive this though
I think if we can maybe put 50 years of progress into 10 years then surviving is possible. First we need nuclear fusion. Uranium will run out, and although there is thorium as a near endless alternative fusion would give us a greater chance of surviving.
On earth humanity can either live in cities deep underground where the earth is still warm (mattix vibes) or live in orbit around earth. Space is cold but there is little to no conductivity. Then we'd only be mining earth for resources.
Nuclear fusion
Deep underground cities and everything that goes with that
Mining resources whilst deep underground
Really good insulation
A fleet of orbital class ships and much better space architecture
I think we could survive. Maybe with 20 years prep
If the atmosphere does begin to freeze, the pressure will drop, making surcivnsu on the surface (in a space suit) much easier. You could have surface buildings on snowball earth again as the conductivity of heat would be lower, so it will be similar to living on Mars in some ways
In fact I'd say our best chances of survival are:
1) evacuate to Mars. Little atmosphere, little radiation protection but we get to keep the sun. We've been working towards it for 70 years and we'll likely have the required technology in 10 (basic) to 50 (complete) years at current rate anyway.
2) evacuate to low earth orbit. No atmosphere, and have to land back on earth to gather resources anyway. But gives protection from the event.
3) city-sized igloos. Not normal igloos obviously, but giant city sized igloos with a shell and base made from extremely thermal insulating materials. This is probably our best chance of keeping a large part of humanity alive in the short term. If we can mass produce extreme and strong thermal insulating material, then we likely wouldn't have to heat the igloo very much. Humans, machines and production produce a lot of heat and we'll be likely creating artificial light for crop growth. Build these in large numbers fat away from coasts. In the very least it will help keep people calmer if we can build enough to fit... 7.4 billion people in (jeez)
4) deep underground cities. Natural heat for decades. Unknown challenges and requirements.
Probably we should do all of them
1) evacuate to Mars. Little atmosphere, little radiation protection but we get to keep the sun. We've been working towards it for 70 years and we'll likely have the required technology in 10 (basic) to 50 (complete) years at current rate anyway.
2) evacuate to low earth orbit. No atmosphere, and have to land back on earth to gather resources anyway. But gives protection from the event.
3) city-sized igloos. Not normal igloos obviously, but giant city sized igloos with a shell and base made from extremely thermal insulating materials. This is probably our best chance of keeping a large part of humanity alive in the short term. If we can mass produce extreme and strong thermal insulating material, then we likely wouldn't have to heat the igloo very much. Humans, machines and production produce a lot of heat and we'll be likely creating artificial light for crop growth. Build these in large numbers fat away from coasts. In the very least it will help keep people calmer if we can build enough to fit... 7.4 billion people in (jeez)
4) deep underground cities. Natural heat for decades. Unknown challenges and requirements.
Probably we should do all of them
All of this is irrelevant because it is extremely unlikely that we would be able to master nuclear fusion.
The experiments so far have resulted in nuclear fusion but only for seconds and by using far far more energy input than output.
I am not saying that it will never be done but well outside a decade timescale.
Moreover, our atmosphere would have been stripped away by the gravitational pull of such a planet as it both approached and moved away.
I don't think our atmosphere would get stripped away. If the Rogue Jupiter came close enough to do that, it would be close enough to break up Earth's crust through gravitational forces, ending all life on Earth.
But the Rogue Jupiter could probably be theoretically far away enough to affect all sides of Earth mostly equally, but close enough to pull Earth on an escape velocity out of the Solar System.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/GravAssis.gif
https://space.stackexchange.com/que...d-and-sun-dive-delta-v-from-lower-earth-orbit
It's amazing to me that no ones surprised at the news that Earths Atmosphere extends past the moon....https://www.space.com/earth-atmosphere-extends-beyond-moon.html. I wonder what will come up, if we search on the nasa website
What do you mean? Please be as specific as possible.
Without watching any of that is it due to Mercury's speedy orbit making it the nearest planet in a linear sense?
I assume it's simply because it's closest to the sun, so when Mercury is on the far side of the sun to another planet, it will be less far away than any other planet's far side orbit. So while Mars and the Earth can be closer together, they can also be much further away from each other. Of course, closest = fastest orbit in any case.
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Yep, it's mathematically the closest on average (including near and far approaches) partly due to its crazy-high orbital speed. The simulation in that video is actually pretty neat in terms of visualizing things — embedding a 45 second gif of that segment in case anyone's interested:
Supercool. I feels smart now.
Wouldn't it be closest no matter the orbital speed (again, ignoring the fact that orbital speed comes directly from the distance the planets orbit the sun)? Surely as much as the speed puts it closer, it also puts it further away, evening out on average. Seems like it would be closest on average even if it hung impossibly still.
There is some excitement about mars and exploring the solar system, what is good i think. But when i look to the sky at night what i see is that this planet is a prison. In the far future i hope we will live in space stations and huge generation ships crossing the galaxy.
We're basic man. We only just discovered electricity. The internet was invented yesterday. We still drive around in fossil fuel powered cars with smoke piling out the back. It's early days. Hopefully we're good enough to make it as far as you say. If certain humans weren't so distracted by other things can you imagine how much quicker we could advance?
It'll be China first since they aren't restricted by a 4 year term in office so they can plan for 100 years from now.
Of course, in an ideal world/galaxy, we'd be sending humanity together without a national flag to stick somewhere .
It's not just Mercury's high orbital speed around Sol that makes it closer...it could actually be the closest even in superior conjunction, when it's supposed to be at its farthest, relative to how its orbit lines up with Earth, Venus and Mars.
As a thought experiment, imagine Earth, Venus and Mercury with synchronized orbits in a universe where Kepler’s Second Law doesn't apply — Earth has the highest orbital speed in the experiment, Venus has a slower orbital speed, and Mercury has the slowest — in a way that makes them perfectly aligned in inferior conjunction...ad infinitum. In that situation, Venus would always be closer to Earth — with respect to both actual physical distance and mathematical averages over time.
To be fair, we've just left the womb, and for all our advances — are nothing but a blip in the cosmos when we put our whole existence into perspective...
Not entirely related to your post, but in order to travel across even our local star system, we'll eventually have to dismantle our human form and evolve into something much greater. Biological life, as we know it, is just too fragile and inefficient and inelegant, and even something as minor as exiting the magnetopause would be enough to kill us off in our current state...which is like dying at your doorstep when you intend on exploring Earth.
Redesigning ourselves should be first priority — before we even think about relativistic travel — and that still won't be enough to traverse across the galactic clusters in a perpetually expanding universe.
This planet is a prison. Interesting viewpoint I must say.
It may seem like a prison but for many generations if not centuries to come it will remain so. The human race isn't going anywhere soon because the levels of technology we have are extremely crude. On that basis we should focus our attention on making life here sustainable. It certainly is not sustainable at present.
We still use rocket technology derived from the 1940's. To become truly interplanetary we need to be able to travel orders of magnitude faster and have made very little progress on doing that.
Necessity is the driver for invention and there is little necessity at the moment.
To be fair, we've just left the womb, and for all our advances — are nothing but a blip in the cosmos when we put our whole existence into perspective...
Not entirely related to your post, but in order to travel across even our local star system, we'll eventually have to dismantle our human form and evolve into something much greater. Biological life, as we know it, is just too fragile and inefficient and inelegant, and even something as minor as exiting the magnetopause would be enough to kill us off in our current state...which is like dying at your doorstep when you intend on exploring Earth.
Redesigning ourselves should be first priority — before we even think about relativistic travel — and that still won't be enough to traverse across the galactic clusters in a perpetually expanding universe.
And @Olly Gunnar Solskjær won't even eat a kebab.
I'm too busy researching the solar system and the history of the universe to have time for kebabs.
One small step for man, one giant leap for Olly's tastebuds
Well he's dead and I'm not, so I think we know who the real winner is.
I think we do.
To be fair, we've just left the womb, and for all our advances — are nothing but a blip in the cosmos when we put our whole existence into perspective...
Not entirely related to your post, but in order to travel across even our local star system, we'll eventually have to dismantle our human form and evolve into something much greater. Biological life, as we know it, is just too fragile and inefficient and inelegant, and even something as minor as exiting the magnetopause would be enough to kill us off in our current state...which is like dying at your doorstep when you intend on exploring Earth.
Redesigning ourselves should be first priority — before we even think about relativistic travel — and that still won't be enough to traverse across the galactic clusters in a perpetually expanding universe.
No i dont think about exploring the local group, i'm humble. Just want to colonize the galaxy with generation ships with some kind of shield(that will not fry us with radiation). People would live, reproduce and die in those ships leaving descendants to keep the exploration going. The ship would be like a nation of Physicists and engineers. It could also carry a small population of normal people to do other jobs.
Also i do not trust in that timeline of the end of the universe tbh. I had this dream some time ago that a part of the Higgs field randomly localized in my middle finger will tunnel to a more stable configuration starting a vacuum decay that will destroy the entire universe. I hope its not happening though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47585433
Hope the tests go well this year. These engines are revolutionary and a game changer in space and air flight.
Hope the tests go well this year. These engines are revolutionary and a game changer in space and air flight.
I hope so but it still needs to be proven these will be more cost effective for LEO than say spacex. We also know that speed isn't necessarily the key factor when it comes to long haul travel - Concorde proved that. So I'm a bit sceptical albeit hopeful.
I know this is a little tangential to the topic but I've been following the fortunes of Skylon and its Sabre engine on and off for almost a decade now and was pleasantly surprised to see it reported on the bbc that it's now passed the ESA's preliminary design review.
It's a spectacular piece of engineering initially designed to launch a vehicle from runway to orbit in a single stage many multiples of times. Although the Skylon (the spacecraft) project has taken a backseat to the engine itself since BAE and the US military took an interest i still harbor some hope that given enough time it will become a homegrown competitor to Space-x. It's a lot further behind and the costs are still greater than for the Falcons but if it keeps passing the tests and there turns out to be a terrestrial use for the engines costs will surely fall. Definitely should be getting more press than it does at any rate.
edit: I also didn't bother reading the two posts directly above, making mine pretty redundant.
It's a spectacular piece of engineering initially designed to launch a vehicle from runway to orbit in a single stage many multiples of times. Although the Skylon (the spacecraft) project has taken a backseat to the engine itself since BAE and the US military took an interest i still harbor some hope that given enough time it will become a homegrown competitor to Space-x. It's a lot further behind and the costs are still greater than for the Falcons but if it keeps passing the tests and there turns out to be a terrestrial use for the engines costs will surely fall. Definitely should be getting more press than it does at any rate.
edit: I also didn't bother reading the two posts directly above, making mine pretty redundant.
The engine design is based on pre cooling which increases jet engine speeds. Even if the rocket section to space is more expensive than reusable rocket engines and that's a big if, then the use of the pre-cooler based jet engines could double the speeds of military fighter and bomber aircraft and missile speeds and that's a huge market before we even think about civilian use.
The scale models have worked in proof of concept and the test facility for full scale trials is being built and as above the design review has been passed.
If it works and I don't want to jinx it but there is huge potential demand for it. It would do to current jet engines what the jet engine did to the propeller engine. Which is why Rolls Royce etc are funding it.
Wow. I'm a third of the way through and this is the most intense thing I've ever seen.
Thanks for sharing, truely mindblowing.
The question remains, though: in 10 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years, will Liverpool have won the Premier League?
I just watched all of it. It was actually very enjoyable. However how much is science and how much is Isaac Asimov? Was this the atheist equivalent of reading/watching the Bible?
Probably a mix. No way to know the ultimate truth. We can only theorize, just like with the beginning.