In about a billion years is the sun forecasted to brighten up And turn the earth into a desert like Mars. Based on History of the formation of the Milky Galaxy StarsAbout half of the sun -like stars was over a billion years before the sun.
If some of these sun hosted a residential planet reminiscent of land, and life on this planet led to the appearance of an wise species over a billion years ago, this species now had to suffer from a destructive astrophysical disaster. In this case, it would be appropriate for us as cosmic citizens of the Milky Galaxy to carry out a funeral service. Once a year, commemorating civilizations that could tragically die in this way in our galaxy. Their number is ten billion, if about one -fifth earth analogues had a similar biological history to the history of the Earth.
This mathematics implies roughly one dead galactic civilization on a living man currently on earth. If only we knew the identity of these lost civilizations, each of us could airy one candle in memory of one of them.
Currently, our efforts to protect against astrophysical threats are rather restricted. . Planetary defense coordination office In NASA, he focuses on the risk of asteroid influence. We can alleviate this risk by tilting the deadly asteroids heading towards the earth. But the inevitable brightening of the sun is much more arduous to alleviate without a huge investment of resources in a space project of engineering on the scale of the Dyson protective megastructure.
The level of social and geopolitical turmoil, which results from the astrophysical disaster caused by star evolution, is arduous to overestimate. As the surface temperature increases, the wars may explode in the desired territories that show a cooler atmosphere. Global heating will probably cause mass migrations to regions such as Antarctica, Greenland and Alaska on Earth.
As soon as the heat becomes unacceptable, multi -billion, such as Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos or Richard Bransons from the day, would expand their business portfolio to offer trips from the ground towards space platforms or rocky planets, such as Mars, whose orbits are further from the explaining star.
In our own solar system, Mars had a desirable property a few billion years ago. . Latest results Extreme levels of evaporation indicate from a rover of curiosity when Mars lost liquid water. Old regions on Mars show signs of bountiful water in the form of valleys and delts and minerals that arise only in the presence of liquid water.
Billions of Mars's atmosphere was much denser and toasty enough to create rivers, lakes and oceans of water. When Mars cooled down and lost the magnetic field, solar wind and radiation eroded the planet's atmosphere, turning the planet's surface into a chilly, dehydrated desert that we see today.
If wise animals existed before the Martian atmosphere, they could leave compelling paintings on the walls of Martian caves. In this case, the delivery of people to Mars through SpaceX may cause a novel invigorating scientific discipline of Martian archeology.
Space migration is unlikely to remain as part of the parent's planetary system. When civilization develops means of travel through astronomical scales for millions of years, it will probably set out on an interstellar journey. Traveling around interstellar space requires a sophisticated navigation system that takes into account the movements of the background stars.
This is mandatory because typical star speeds hundreds of kilometers per second exceed a typical speed of chemical rockets. The navigation system can be anchored in a global space frame of the microwave, in relation to which all speeds can be calibrated perfectly by the Doppler effect. Nevertheless, reaching the destination to the residence of the exoplanets around a distant star would be much more demanding than the navigation challenge encountered by Moses in the biblical history of his journey leading Israelit towards the Promised Land.
Yesterday in a podcast interview I noticed that Moses would be very impressed with a newfangled mobile phone than a burning bush in the original Biblical story. The cell phone would not only give Moses “besides this world”, but would also provide him with practical benefit.
Instead of wandering in the desert for forty years on traveling to the Promised Land, the GPS system on a mobile phone would allow Moses to reach their destination within a few weeks or months, depending on the route. And whenever the Israelites are straying with the best path, the GPS system would announce “re -calculation”. Imagine this announcement appearing in the biblical text.
Like Moses, who never reached the Promised Land, most interstellar travelers probably did not survive the travel and left destroyed vehicles. Considering this, archeology can be extended outside Mars to search interstellar objects. Some pollution from these ambitious projects can now fly through the Solar System. Finding them among numerous interstellar asteroids requires a dedicated space telescope, as I argued in latest article.
The discovery of interstellar technological relics would remind us of the dead civilizations that preceded us. At least we can do in their honor, it is regaining elements of vehicles, which they desperately introduced into space in the last century of residence on their birth exoplanets.
Commemorating their existence reminds us of how defenseless we are. We hope that this sober realization convincing us to stop the toxicity that characterizes our compact -term geopolitical interactions on Earth. From a cosmic perspective, we are all on the same boat.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
