Does it make you sad to think that the earth will end in 5 billion years?

I’d worry more about the imminent dangers of nuclear war, terrorism, disease, natural catastrophe, or the wayward asteroid.

In 5 billion years humans will have adapted to living on the Sun. Others will have chosen a more moderate climate and moved to Saturn. I fully expect that I will have some ancestors living in 5 billion years.

How could people ever adapt to living on the sun? I didn’t think it was even remotely possible. And if the sun dies, where will people live then? Is Saturn far enough away?

Future ancestors on the Sun, that’s cool. I hope I will have descendants. Evolving backwards would be cool though.

@TheLoneMonk 5 billion years? say your children(you have 2 for arguements sake) have a 75% chance to have a children of their own(they all have 2 as well), the odds become remarkably low that EVERY one of your children and their children etc successfully bear their own children.

and living on the sun? the average temp. on red giants(what our sun will become when it engulfs much of our solar system) is 3500 degrees Celsius. hot enough to vaporize metals… something tells me life of any sort would not be able to survive.

Saturn, on the other hand, is not actually a solid planet, it’s a series of dense gases surronding what is speculated as hydrogen in the it’s plasma form. even if it turns out the core of saturn is a solid, the pure pressure from the gigantic atmosphere is astounding. the most likely scenario is another planet outside our solar system, which, in 5 billion years it’s logical to think that if there is an applicable way to traverse millions of light years without it actually taking a huge amount of time, we’ll have found it by then. But I hardly see how the sun or saturn could be viable options regardless of evolution, it’s just virtually impossible with the existing elements in our universe.

unless you were refering to one of saturns moons? but you only said saturn so that’s what I’m going off.

There is enough going on in my lifetime to worry about. I do not spend one second thinking about something that might occur in five billion years.

So soon?

@TheLoneMonk – Well, Titan will have a quite agreeable climate as our Sun expands. Our descendant might not live on the Sun, but perhaps build a Dyson Sphere around it. And there’s another solution as well: in a few thousand years we will have the technology to change the orbit of the Earth. We will tow it away from the Sun keeping it in the habitable zone. Some of our brothers and sisters will live on Earth-like planets circling other stars.

@emilia_eclaire – I read the book too. It’s great. I really like this real-life example of the deserted buffer zone on Cyprus. Have you met the ghosts yet?

All things are finite.
Planets are no exception.
Some day our sun will go red giant and it’s diameter will likely extend past Mars.

Odds are human life will be extinct long before then. Most life forms as we know it will.

No, not really. 5 billion years? That is a long time from now, I wonder if we’ll (as a civilization) make it that long.

Instead of focusing on something so far off, I’d prefer to see what we can do to make things better now, and put the worries of what may happen 5 billion years from now, on the back burner.

the sun, I’ll pass! A little too toasty for me!

umm NO thats like in wat 5 billion years i wont be alive, im not sad

I am thrilled when I get through each 24 hrs. unscathed.

Excluding the fact that we’ll likely have evolved to something not recognizeable as human within 100 million years (let alone 1 or 5 billion), we have plenty of time to figure out a way to make sure the Earth doesn’t end :) . (or find another place to live).

Hopefully it will end much sooner! At the rate society is deteriorating, I hate to think about what my great great grandchildren would be enduring in their lifetimes.

It makes me sad to know that there are people (not you) pushing a population control agenda in mass media: a. for their own benefit and b. to weaken and control decent, caring spirits by exacerbating their distress.

“The human race is governed by its imagination.” – Napolean Bonaparte

@ABoyNamedBoobs03: You took this very, very seriously. <3

I think Saturn sounds dreamy.

@Boyboobhead: I guess you didn’t note the lump in my cheek.

Yes,I’ll be too old to really enjoy it.

In 5 billion years? the earth we here before life began and will probably be still around after it has long, long gone. No, since I read about it, as a child, in a special issue of Life I don’t lose sleep over the idea (at the time it gave me nightmares). What concerns me now is the messes I have made of my opportunities, and to a lesser degree, the messes created by others.

@TheLoneMonk

there should really be an emoticon or something that indicates sarcasm.

@mattbrowne

no! i just picked it up like yesterday. by ghosts do you mean radio and television transmissions that will be around for ever? if not don’t tell me…

@Wildman

HA! That raises a new issue entirely.

I am optimistic

@TheLoneMonk well seeing as I can only read your text, and it doesn’t show inflection, it’s quite difficult to detect sarcasm.

I think humanity has the resilience to stick around and adapt to situations. That being said, I also think that we will probably be wiped out before the sun envelops the earth anyway. We’re all going to blow ourselves up.

@emilia_eclaire – Sorry for the spoiler, Emilia. The “ghosts” are about something else. You’ll see. Enjoy the book! Don’t let it scare you. I see it as a thought experiment playing with ‘what if…’ questions. It boosts our scientific understanding and promotes critical thinking. It’s not about doom. It’s about the virtue of humility.

I won’t have a lot to worry about in 5 billion years so I’m not completely sad about knowing the earth will end at that time.

I’m hoping that mankind will stop arguing over stupid little questions, evolve, and move off of this little hopeless planet by then.

5 billion years? What are you talking about? The world is going to end in 3 years in 2012 . :P

@uberbatman – The world should have already ended at the beginning of the year 2000. A lot of people predicting this were surprise to live and experience January 2. Hey, now it’s already 2009 and we are still there. What when wrong? The followers of Mayanism will be very surprised to be able to log on to Fluther in the year 2013. Fluther will prevail ;-)

The predictions of the end have been around since the beginning.All generations have had their predictions not come true.Scientists and Religions have been predicting the end since time began.Therefore do not worry until it is upon us.LOVE everyone until it does come.Today,tommorrow,next year,next century or next billion years!

Some years ago a group of American astronomers predicted a gigantic asteroid would hit the earth early in this century. I think they said some time around 2030. A few days later, they published a correction: the actual date was something along the lines of September, 2110 or thereabouts (if anyone can google this, I am open to correction). Absurdly, my reaction to the latter announcement was disappointment.

@Wildman, the horrid thought has occurred to me that perhaps the world has ended and this is what we have left.

@bea2345 OOOOHHHH!That is thought provoking,but if it was so,we still have a chance to fix it.Maybe.

@bea2345 – I’m in favor of intensifying the NEO project efforts. But we still got the issue of long-period comets. More telescopes to watch the skies is money well spent. Remember Jupiter in 1994? Still, on Earth the likelihood for large objects to hit is low. So when you leave your house in the morning you should rather watch cars and not get hit by them.

Not to put a damper on things, but it is not just Earth and not just the Solar System. The entire Universe is winding down. There are two possibilities. Either the Universe will continue its expansion and disintegration decay until there is nothing left, or the Universe will stop expanding, reverse direction and close in on itself unti it is one huge black hole.

Solution? Don’t worry about such things. Cherish the current moment and make the best of it.

It actually does make me sad and scared, even though I know I will be long gone, and so will everyone I care about. The human race might be extinct by then. If the earth gets incinerated, then all of the material that everything here is made of will float back into space, to be sucked in to the gravitational pull of another planet, and then we will be able to start over again. That is one was to look at it.

Many years ago I read in a magazine that scientists had calculated that a celestial body would hit Earth some time in the twenty first century (I think the date was about 2030). Some time later there was a retraction: the object would be arriving much later – much, much later. Absurdly, my first reaction was disappointment.