Earth's moon destined to disintegrate

[Kia]

Earth's moon destined to disintegrate (http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/22/moon.destiny/index.html)

Rather a catchy title I must say. Anyways, I read the article and found bits rather interesting. I knew about the possibility that the earth would get incinerated sometime in the future but I never thought of it in relation to the moon.


The Sun's mutation into a red giant provides a huge stumbling block to the moon's getaway and is likely to ensure the moon ends its days the way it began; as a ring of Earth-girdling debris.

"The density and temperature both increase rapidly near the apparent surface (photosphere) of the future giant sun," Willson explained. As the Earth and moon near this blistering hot region, the drag caused by the sun's extended atmosphere will cause the moon's orbit to decay. The moon will swing ever closer to Earth until it reaches a point 11,470 miles (18,470 kilometers) above our planet, a point termed the Roche limit.

"Reaching the Roche limit means that the gravity holding it [the moon] together is weaker than the tidal forces acting to pull it apart," Willson said.

The moon will be torn to pieces and every crater, mountain, valley, footprint and flag will be scattered to form a spectacular 23,000-mile-diameter (37,000-kilometer) Saturn-like ring of debris above Earth's equator. The new rings will be short-lived. Theory dictates they'll eventually rain down onto Earth's surface.

This provides a basic idea of what could happen. Im sure that without the moon the earth's ecosystem would just collapse or go nuts. Its also possible though that by that time the earths temp will have risen so high that no life will even exist on earth and that this will be of little worry. Any ideas?



There are possible natural alternatives, however.

If the sun as a red giant sloughs off enough material before Earth evaporates, our planet will be revealed from its stellar cocoon in a moon-less guise. Earth, robbed of its companion, would undertake a lonely vigil as the sun turns eventually into a stellar corpse called a white dwarf, fading to black over the ensuing trillions of years.

Alternatively, if the swelling sun loses 20 percent of its mass prior to it reaching our vicinity, both Earth and moon could be spared incineration and remain together facing each other for eternity. The actual outcome remains a theoretical uncertainty because no red giant star has been observed during this crucial phase.

Interesting ive never thought that the earth could even survive when the sun entered its red stage. Also interesting to know that we have no current data on the outcome so the whole thing is completely hypothetical.

[Tarik]

I didn't know too.Thanks for the article.

[Faceless]

This provides a basic idea of what could happen. Im sure that without the moon the earth's ecosystem would just collapse or go nuts. Its also possible though that by that time the earths temp will have risen so high that no life will even exist on earth and that this will be of little worry. Any ideas?

Haha, in 5 billion years (or whenever this takes place), I think the moon will be the last problem life on Earth will face. Did you notice the article mentioned that the cause of this will be that the sun will have become a "red giant"? Observe:

http://www.physics.hku.hk/~nature/CD/regular_e/lectures/images/chap15/red_size.jpg

The reasoning behind the article is that we will be in the extended atmosphere of this monstrosity. What do you think that feels like?

[Janus]

In 5 billion years, our Sun will have become a red giant and thus have expanded to consume Earth itself.

[Kia]

Thats whats interesting about the article..its saying that there are other hypothetical possibilities. Earth could be consumed, vaporized, ecosystem destroyed, moon obliterated, or if lucky still kicking.

[Sentinel]

In 5 billion years, our Sun will have become a red giant and thus have expanded to consume Earth itself.

Luckily I think it's quite safe to assert that if mankind is still around after 5 billion years we will have the means to escape this catastrophe, and terraform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming) another planet(s) somewhere out there to a new home. We will propably have done it by that time of other reasons anyway.

[Eleutherios]

Hell, if our descendants are still here in 5 billion years, they'd probably have the technology to just move the whole damn planet to a new solar system.

[piet11111]

bah i would be dissapointed if we could not artificially manage our sun to not only stay stable but to also provide all our natural resources.
sort of like a dyson sphere.

[cb9's_unity]

i'd honestly be more worried about asteroids. So far the earths been around for 4 billion years (i think) and asteroids have already nearly wrecked the planet a few times. And over population and the consumption of natural recourses will force us to find a way of this planet far before we are threatened by a red giant.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 02:21 pm
bah i would be dissapointed if we could not artificially manage our sun to not only stay stable but to also provide all our natural resources.
sort of like a dyson sphere.
:lol:
brilliant

[The Anarchist Prince]

In 5 billion years, I shudder to think what Humans will look like. Hairless, spindly limbed, large headed creatures. Hell, maybe we'll be telapathic. And we better be able to move a planet by then.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

What's missing in the speculation of how we can terraform other planets is knowledge about other planets and terraforming. I imagine most of the technology we already have. Space transportation, human travel in space, etc. Moving a planet seems to me altogether too inefficient and pointless, when there are so many other perfectly good planets not being used. Not to mention that the earth's ecosystem would completely collapse once it was moved.

[razboz]

Originally posted by Dr. [email protected] 14, 2007 02:59 am
Not to mention that the earth's ecosystem would completely collapse once it was moved.
Im not sure that would be the most pressing matter would be the destruction of the ecosystem when faced with an expanding ball of feiry plasma.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

We're talking about the implications involved in resolving the problem of the expanding ball of fiery plasma before it happens, not after the fact.

[red_orchestra]

So the moon could fly a part - true. But it is also true that this won't happen for a very very long time.


more important and pressing event is the shedding of the corona. A CME or Corona Mass Ejection is likely to occur in the next 10 years. When this happens we will know the true meaning of "rebirth" of civilization. All magnetic fields will reverse and electrical distribution centers, com towers, radio, and most things electronic will fry. The sky will light up with electrical discharges - it will be a huge event... and likely one that will last years.

[razboz]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 08:19 am
So the moon could fly a part - true. But it is also true that this won't happen for a very very long time.


more important and pressing event is the shedding of the corona. A CME or Corona Mass Ejection is likely to occur in the next 10 years. When this happens we will know the true meaning of "rebirth" of civilization. All magnetic fields will reverse and electrical distribution centers, com towers, radio, and most things electronic will fry. The sky will light up with electrical discharges - it will be a huge event... and likely one that will last years.
That sounds cool...in an end of the world, destructiion of civilisation and society like we know it kind of way. Could you maybe give us some links on the topic, sounds interesting...

[Honggweilo]

Moving the planet sounds like extreme Terran chauvinism to me :lol: terraforming FTW

Btw, the possiblity of gamma radiation from a colapsed star far away (which can have a tremendous range) could incinerate our planet in seconds, its just a matter of luck it didnt happen yet.

Also, in 10k years our galaxy will probably colide with a neighbouring galaxy which will cause a catastrophic shockwave throughout both galaxies.

There are too much doomsday senario's to think of, and we better start developing warpdrive, sleeperships and terraforming techniques ASAP. Asuming we don't cut each others troaths within the next century :P

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 05:19 am
So the moon could fly a part - true. But it is also true that this won't happen for a very very long time.


more important and pressing event is the shedding of the corona. A CME or Corona Mass Ejection is likely to occur in the next 10 years. When this happens we will know the true meaning of "rebirth" of civilization. All magnetic fields will reverse and electrical distribution centers, com towers, radio, and most things electronic will fry. The sky will light up with electrical discharges - it will be a huge event... and likely one that will last years.
bullshit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection

[Janus]

Terraforming isn't moving the Earth but modifying anothe planet's environment so that it can support human life.

[redcannon]

Originally posted by Dr. Rosenpenis+February 15, 2007 10:34 am--> (Dr. Rosenpenis @ February 15, 2007 10:34 am)
[email protected] 15, 2007 05:19 am
So the moon could fly a part - true. But it is also true that this won't happen for a very very long time.


more important and pressing event is the shedding of the corona. A CME or Corona Mass Ejection is likely to occur in the next 10 years. When this happens we will know the true meaning of "rebirth" of civilization. All magnetic fields will reverse and electrical distribution centers, com towers, radio, and most things electronic will fry. The sky will light up with electrical discharges - it will be a huge event... and likely one that will last years.
bullshit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection [/b]
yeah, i mean CMEs happen all the time.

also, that thing about a nearby star's gamma radiation destroying us is bullshit too. You see, earth has a little thing called an atmospher, those hundreds of miles of gas is to much for such a small little wave to get through.

gamma ray bursts happen all the time, in fact about a couple of years ago the north-western hemisphere of earth was hit by a giant blast of gamma radiation.
didn't do shit.

in my opinion, i think the end of the world will be ghosts of dead child laborers killing off all people.

[piet11111]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 09:20 am
Moving the planet sounds like extreme Terran chauvinism to me
i did not suggest moving the planet i said that we should encapsulate the sun with something like a dyson sphere so we can manage our sun and prevent it from going super nova.

then we might just aswell extract the enormous amounts of matter that the sun blasts out and use it for all our resource requirements.

once we did that then we can start thinking about moving our entire solar system inside some gigantic spaceship ;)
(yes i mean our entire solar system INSIDE a space ship because we humans are just so awesome)

if we can go from not being able to fly to thinking up plans for terraforming mars within a 100 years then i feel confident to say we can do the above mentioned things within 2000 years.

if you consider this mindblowing then did i just perform a blowjob :unsure: