One day the sun will die

[MagentaRocks]

For some reason I wondered what would happen if the sun dies. I looked it up and it turns out that the sun is half way through its life and it will die, by getting hotter and burning itself out in effect. It will also swallow the earth. It is likely to be a billion years before life on earth is wiped out - as the sun gets hotter the water around us will boil etc but it feels really weird to think that one day there will be nothing and no life anywhere.

I think I have freaked myself out during lockdown!

I was really hoping you were talking about the newspaper - that thought cheered me right up.

@merryhouse

@flippefloppe
I saw an article about the sun and it got me thinking. It is something that probably happens for lots of people. You see something and it makes you think about other stuff. Not unusual.

And I don't know how technology might change over the next billion years.

And it does feel like ridicule. Once again I thought it was something interesting to discuss/think about. I don't think I will bother again.

Thanks to those who have posted links to things they think I might find interesting.

I think with everyone on Lockdown,its only natural to think about things you dont normally.

And it beats another thread about My neighbour smiled at me,will i get teh virus
Or i havent been out since 1961 but i need bread,can i go tot the shop

Them threads are getting on my tits.

I remember my dad telling me this when I was young. I know that sounds like a strange thing to tell a child, but I was raised in a very religious family and every Sunday at church was fire and brimstone and the end of the world. And although my dad was a man of strong faith, he was also very scientifically minded. So he told me this to quell my fears. And it worked .

We'll have been wiped out by the effect of a meterorite/ superbug/ climate change/ war well before then OP. I wouldn't worry about it

When my dc found this out, dd got really paranoid the sun was going to explode while she was asleep and ds got really upset whenever he thought about it.

the technology that you previously mentioned that may step in and save humanity, how will it be powered?

By something that hasn’t been discovered yet?

Less than 200 years ago who would have predicted the wide use of Electricity we have today when the world was powered by either water, horses or that new technology, Steam.

I remember learning about this a child (about 7-8) and it terrrified me! Still does if I’m honest!!

Hahaha well you have given me a really good belly laugh. Let's hope you can laugh about it too.

The sun, and the science behind it is a very interesting item to read up about. Continue your research. Knowledge is power, as they say.

Here's a little something to get you started.

history.nasa.gov/EP-177/ch3-1.html

Also, the history of the earth is bloody amazing. So so so so so much history. Humans are literally a blip on the timeline.

If we’re all in a computer simulation all arbitrary...A future civilisation may be running an ancestor simulation & seeing how we’ve moved on since the Spanish flu pandemic. That might be just a blink of an eye ago for ‘them’. Maybe chuck a few other obstacles at us whilst there & see how we do?

OP, I think your mistake was starting a post on a Tuesday lunchtime. 11pm on a Friday and everyone would assume you were drunk and/or high and this had caused your quite understandable realisation of our insignificance in the universe.

I read that our galaxy is on a collision course with another galaxy as well.

The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy are due to collide around the time the sun dies....Andromeda is coming for us at 68 miles per second

We are nothing. We will return to nothing and in a few 1000 years there will be no record of us beyond some slowly degrading plastic in the soil.
I find this a comfort

Yes - so do I. It's a really good thing to remember if you are feeling stressed about small things, say, a work deadline or whether you might have offended someone. Also if you are having one of those moments where you feel you haven't achieved anything in life - because even our greatest achievers, Einstein, Shakespeare, Da Vinci will all eventually be as nothing.

Is this news to you? I thought everyone realised the sun has a finite lifespan. By the time it happens humans may have colonised other planets beyond this solar system.

I'm sat here really chuckling over this thread! But then I do have a warped sense of humour!

I have laughed my socks off too. Proper crying with mirth. I think it’s the mournful tone.

I sometimes think about what sort of people I’d like around me in a crisis. Imagine being in the trenches in WWI next to someone lamenting that one day the sun will die, boo boo, pulling a face like a bloodhound!

I really wouldn't worry about the sun dying. Not when renowned psychic Jeane Dixon has predicted that .... ARMAGEDDON WILL TAKE PLACE IN 2020!!! 2020!!!! THAT'S NOW!!! That said, she previously predicted the world would end on February 4, 1962, so there is a slim chance that she could be wrong!

FFS it wasn't a mournful tone. It was a discussion. Glad so many of you find it funny. Takes me back to being at school feeling like I don't fit in again.

And I am NOT worried. I thought it would make an interesting discussion. Of course I knew the sun wouldn't last forever, but never really thought much about it. It was a we take things for granted.

And there I go trying to justify myself

I thought this was the return of Birdie Friend!

Oh no, OP, don't not post again. I have enjoyed this thread and of course it is something interesting to think about and discuss. For me it is such an incredible paradox that effectively (as per the Bill Bailey intro cited upthread) all human endeavour is basically meaningless and nothing really matters, and yet somehow it does.

I presume this all feels a bit different for people who are properly religious?

Read yourself some Sartre, that will sort you right out

Even better, eventually the entire universe will go out. Every star...poof, gone.

The black holes are sucking up all of our star leftovers and eventually there won't be enough to make new ones. The ones we already have will go out and the universe will die.

Well, I don't know about anyone else but I'm cheered up