Moving the Earth

[MolotovCocktail]

I know this seems a little silly, but if you look at this article it has been seriously considered. This feat has been proposed as a way to save the Earth from the Sun a billion years down the road.

 

Here is an excerpt from the article:

 

Well before then, things will turn real nasty. In just a billion years, the Sun could be 11-percent brighter, scientists say, rendering Earth an inhospitable greenhouse. In 3.5 billion years, the Sun could be 40-percent brighter than it is today.....

 

....They started with a simulated comet or asteroid 62 miles (100 kilometers) wide, about six times larger than the one thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The solar system has plenty of objects like this -- in the main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and farther out in the Kuiper Belt. The trick is to find one that's headed our way, then use a small amount of energy to guide it, like a spacecraft, onto a new course through our solar system.

Here's what you do:

• 
  
• Using humans or robotic spacecraft, attach retrorockets -- like those that maneuver spacecraft -- to the rock. Alter its course of so that it passes near Earth. The planet then steals some of the space rock's orbital energy and uses it to move into an orbit slightly farther from the Sun. (NASA employs a similar technique to propel spacecraft, sending them around a planet in order to boost them into new trajectories at higher speeds.)
  
• Send the comet or asteroid back out around Jupiter and Saturn, where it will regain orbital energy by robbing it from the giant planets. (In effect, Earth is ultimately getting its orbital boost from Jupiter and Saturn.) Make the rock continue on a long, elliptical orbit that goes way the heck out there -- 325 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.
  
• Bring the rock back around Earth every 6,000 years or so, and each time the planet will creep outward a few more miles. The goal: An ultimate retreat of several million miles (kilometers)

................."This is not an urgent problem," Adams stressed, adding that the researchers merely wanted to prove -- on paper -- that such a scheme was possible. "And we are in no way advocating policy."

 

So, what do you guys think? A way to avoid the ultimate fate?

 

[jackson33]

yes, the sun will begin the dieing process and its expected in about a billion years. prior to that however, we have a couple little dwarf galaxy that our Milky Way is expected to absorb, in about 25 thousand years and then a real problem in less than 2 million years when the very large Andromeda Galaxy and ours are given a high probability to collide. any of these alone could wipe our life on little old earth. oh! yes the moon is moving away a couple inch per year but this gradual effect, may still exist in a billion years.

 

we could extend life on the planet if around when the sun starts to burn out much easier by manipulating the atmosphere. we couldn't survive today if nature had not done this for us.

 

the theory mentioned relates to or comes from the one being explored to alter an orbit of one on those rocks now heading our way, think due in 2029 and return in 33. the idea is to send a craft to create enough gravity to alter this meteors path enough to change its eventual course around the sun and its returning to collide with us...

[Luminal]

Andromeda won't collide for at least 2 billion years, not 2 million. After all, the galaxy is 2 million light years away. It would have to travel at light speed (or both galaxies at half) directly toward each other. Even then, it doesn't ensure our death. Most of the stars in each galaxy won't make contact with each other, and shouldn't be a problem for us.

 

As for our own Sun, big deal. Goodness, in a billion years, humans should (and I stress this word, because we don't know what possible fools in the future might do to endanger us) be spread well across our own galaxy, and likely throughout the local universe.

[CDarwin]

I have a feeling that by the time the earth gets around to needing moving, the cockroaches won't care very much about the wild speculation of billion year old human scientists.

[jackson33]

Andromeda won't collide for at least 2 billion years, not 2 million. After all, the galaxy is 2 million light years away. It would have to travel at light speed (or both galaxies at half) directly toward each other. Even then, it doesn't ensure our death. Most of the stars in each galaxy won't make contact with each other, and shouldn't be a problem for us.

 

As for our own Sun, big deal. Goodness, in a billion years, humans should (and I stress this word, because we don't know what possible fools in the future might do to endanger us) be spread well across our own galaxy, and likely throughout the local universe.

 

doing quick math i blew that statement; Enc. Wik, does say 5 billion years at minimal, but the authors give a much bleaker attitude on survival of anything.

the thought is even a near miss would bring a Loop reaction, reforming both our spirals into a large elliptical.

 

much as your point, what may happen in a billion years, would seem useless energy spent when so much else could happen, either good or bad.

[the tree]

"This is not an urgent problem," Adams stressed, adding that the researchers merely wanted to prove -- on paper -- that such a scheme was possible. "And we are in no way advocating policy."

Where is the need to prove that you can move Earth? It was done on Futurama, so obviously it'll work.

[Sisyphus]

I have a feeling that by the time the earth gets around to needing moving, the cockroaches won't care very much about the wild speculation of billion year old human scientists.

 

That's pretty much my view on the subject as well. A billion years is just too long a time frame to say anything meaningful about. In the extremely unlikely event that anything "human" is still around then, it will be part of a billion-year-old civilization and presumably have long since moved beyond such planetary trivialities.

[richard]

I think by the time the disaster arrives the polititions may just about have agreed to divert funds to study possible solutions.