Prognosis Earth? We're Doomed

[Blisspath]

Researchers are saying that the Sun could swallow up the Earth in as little as 7 billion years unless we are able to move our current orbit. If this is true, my property values are sure to take a massive dive. We can't tell the temperature for the next five days, but yet we can predict this? If we have to move, I want to go live with The Borg..those guys are bad asses and they dress nice.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/earth_move_010207.html

[Beldaran]

We can't tell the temperature for the next five days, but yet we can predict this?

News flash for people who don't know anything about science: meteorology != astrophysics

Someday, conservatives will have to admit that scientists don't just sit around and make things up in order to promote liberalism. Data is data. If you don't like the data, that doesn't mean scientists are out to get you.

[Blisspath]

News flash for people who don't know anything about science: meteorology != astrophysics

Someday, conservatives will have to admit that scientists don't just sit around and make things up in order to promote liberalism. Data is data. If you don't like the data, that doesn't mean scientists are out to get you.

I'm not a conservative..I'm a libertarian and I am sorta kinda a scientist..if chemistry still counts. As a scientist I am trained to be skeptical and many study heads today bypass peer reviews and head straight to the reporters. In past times stories like this one would have never have seen the light of day but with thousands of news outlets and blogs there is a rush to be first...it doesn't do anything but hurt the field and confuse the public.

[Aegix Drakan]

7 Billion years? pfft.

Like we need to worry about that. The earth and humanity are prolly gonna be long gone way before that ever rolls around.

At the rate we're going, there i sno way this planet's gonna last 7 billion more years.

[Beldaran]

In seven billion years, we will either be immortal technological gods beyond reproach, or we will have anhiliated ourselves.

[Aegix Drakan]

or we will have anhiliated ourselves.

>_> This is far more likely.

[Daarkseid]

In past times stories like this one would have never have seen the light of day but with thousands of news outlets and blogs there is a rush to be first...it doesn't do anything but lesson the field and confuse the public.

Rush to be first?

I think it was in grade school that I learned that the proposed fate of the sun was that it would grow into a red giant and swallow the earth in about 7 billion years.


In the 1930's and 1940's, with a understanding of hydrogen fusion, came a physically-based theory of evolution to red giants, and white dwarfs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram

Also, that article you linked in your topic post appears to be from 2001.

[Shyvus]

[QUOTE=Daarkseid;1163075]
I think it was in grade school that I learned that the proposed fate of the sun was that it would grow into a red giant and swallow the earth in about 7 billion years.
[QUOTE]

Same here.

Also, if someone is getting their scientific info from a non-scholarly source and then getting all worked up about it- that's their fault. I only use science press as leads for my own investigations, not as facts. That would be like using wikipedia for a doctoral thesis.

The press will always run to snag the latest story as soon as possible. That's why you shouldn't get your science news from the news and need to get it from peer-reviewed journals. It isn't just scientific data that you need to do that with- economic data, educational data and statistics all need to be peer reviewed before you should take them as anything near fact.

[rock_nog]

Why are people always going on about saving the planet? I've never understood this. If the Earth wanted, it could eradicate us like a pimple. I mean, the planet routinely gets struck by giant freakin' rocks from outer space - if it can handle that, I think it can survive us. Now, don't get me wrong, I firmly believe we should take care of our planet - but because we're the fragile ones, and while there's not much we can do to it, there's a helluva lot that it can do to us.

I mean, think about it - we've got enough nuclear weapons to wipe ourselves out a thousand times over, but that's still not enough to prevent the planet from eventually bouncing back (oh sure, it'll be a long damn while, but that's beside the point).

[MoonCheese]

I think "saving the planet" to most people means keeping Earth a place that can sustain a human population, not just making sure it still exists as a big ball of rock orbiting the Sun.

[Feasul]

Why are people always going on about saving the planet? I've never understood this. If the Earth wanted, it could eradicate us like a pimple.

I dunno, I've had some pretty tough pimples in my day.

This reminds me, though. Recently there was a speaker at my school talking about a few things, and there were a couple of dumb things she said that made me want to go "Um, you're exaggerating, right?" one of which was "I firmly believe that we currently have enough military power to destroy the Universe." I'm just going to leave it at that, cause its utter wrongness is so self-evident.

[Aegix Drakan]

I've never understood this. If the Earth wanted, it could eradicate us like a pimple.

...>_> I think it's trying to do that. Hence Aids, SARS, a million other new diseases and the whole new slew of natural disasters.

[Feasul]

Except the Earth isn't actually, you know, conscious. It's not actively trying to eradicate us, that's just how nature is. Environments change over time, and any species need to adapt, or else they'll die. I'm sure if the ancient microbes could think, they'd have been horrified at how toxic the Earth was becoming as oxygen became so plentiful.