Earth's Period of Habitability Is Nearly Over 756
xp65 writes "Scientists at this year's XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil agree that we do not yet know how ubiquitous or how fragile life is, but that: 'The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion years.' Other surprising claims from this conference: that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."
Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:4, Funny)
This might be what Earth needs. (Score:5, Funny)
Just think--an end to war, violence, depravity, poverty, oppression. Everyone will TRULY become equal then. Who knew the sun could be so... so... progressive?
so little time left (Score:3, Funny)
I guess we should party til the last days then since we have so little left
Ok, NOW I'm worried (Score:2, Funny)
I'd better start with my bucket list.
Linux on the desktop (Score:5, Funny)
So Linux on the desktop will really never happen! Pity.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:0, Funny)
xx
Re:This might be what Earth needs. (Score:2, Funny)
Just think--an end to war, violence, depravity, poverty, oppression. Everyone will TRULY become equal then. Who knew the sun could be so... so... progressive?
Vote 1: "Death Star", for a Better Tomorrow!
Repent sinners for the end is nigh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:3, Funny)
The presentation was made in power point.
It was a large file.
Which was in the lecturer's usb drive.
He copied it to the projector's hd...
Depending on who you believe, the Earth will be inhabitable for a billion more years or so, or a couple hundred years
Re:Repent sinners for the end is nigh (Score:5, Funny)
For a second, I thought you'd made that name up, then I RTFA. His name really is Manfred Cuntz.
Man Bear Pig, I give you, Man Fred Cuntz.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:2, Funny)
Well, so much for the real-estate market bouncing back. I mean heck, who wants to buy property that doesn't have sufficient air conditioning?? :)
Re:So we still have... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure we'll develop something that can shift us around the universe - even if it's just building a generation-ship, but will it be big enough to take *everyone*?
Then it should be a lot bigger than the previous one.
According to ancient sources, it only had space for one family and one pair of each animal species (or seven pairs for clean beasts and fowl)
See Genesis 7...
Re:so little time left (Score:3, Funny)
No obviously we should spend the last days figuring out how to blame this on Bush. After all that's what the MSM will be doing.
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
*Not the sound of the atmosphere evaporating.
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:5, Funny)
I expect this basement to stay nice and cool (read: inhabitable) so long as my parents keep paying the rent.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, me too. So long, and thanks for all the fish ...
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:5, Funny)
If I was God here's how I'd do things
The Bible would have performance targets - e.g. colonise the moon and so on. Once those were achieved I'd just change them retroactively so humans thought they had to do say the moon and mars. Basically every time anyone picked the book up it would tell them that God thinks that as a species we're a day late and a dollar short and he's sick of it. I'd also explain that the dinosaurs didn't meet their targets either and even humans should be able to deduce the consequences of that.
Oh and by the way, FORE!
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:1, Funny)
Screw you guys... I'm going home.
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:1, Funny)
There is not even a center to rotate around.
That's not true. There is the greased axle of the wheel of fortune.
Duke Nukem... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sooner than that... (Score:2, Funny)
Don't you mean "Apocalypse"? Then again, if the world was brought to its knees by South American camelids, it would be the alpaca-lypse...
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:3, Funny)
Just when we were about to figure out free energy!
G(T,p) = U + pV â' TS
A(T,V) = U â' TS
What else is there to figure out?
Would it help if I drove a Prius? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:3, Funny)
I though it was the Book of Gore.
Dammit, I get all my books of the bible wrong.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Ringo, Paul, Gore, George, and Bono followed by revaluations right?
Joke (Score:5, Funny)
World Ends Tomorrow: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit (old journalism joke)
Re:Its not a problem.... (Score:1, Funny)
Just give it to Congress. It will take them that long to vote on it
Re:So we still have... (Score:3, Funny)
Pfft, why nukes when we have stuff like the Large Hadron Collider. An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age.
Re:Depending on who you believe (Score:3, Funny)
That's not true. There is the greased axle of the wheel of fortune.
The universe rotates around a TV studio in Hollywood?
No wonder movie stars are so vain.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rubbish, of course it is. (Score:3, Funny)
Not neccesarily. The fact that life evolved just means that conditions are good enough. Maybe our solar system/planet is the Windows of the universe; good enough to function but still crap compared to others.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:4, Funny)
>By the time the earth is uninhabitable, we will have terraformed Mars and Europa.
I don't think so somehow. I'd give us all 100 years tops:
* 2030 - Major/Vast global wars over resources
* 2035 - All the infrastructure that we take for granted today will be but a dream.... referred to as the golden years. Mad Max 1.
* 2045 - Mad Max 2 (lets not talk about Mad Max 3) lifestyle. Nomadic, barbaric and feudal fiefdoms circled around the last few remaining energy resources.
* 2100 - humans loose ability to read/write
* 2200 - I, for one, welcome out xyz overlords...
Its already too late as no effort is being made to find alternative resources... one days we'll just wake up with, "ZMG!!11oneone... no fuel!"
Humanity as a whole is less interesting in scientific endeavour and natural selection is no longer at work as we actively encourage our stupid/lazy/selfish behaviour via socialism and x-factor (pop star type show).
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:4, Funny)
With the Sun getting too hot, we won't need cold fusion. We will just need to shade the tropics with highly inefficient PV cells.
And the employment situation will be improved with all the post-hurricane repair workers required... Future Earth, you can thank me for this contribution to your survival by building a statue in my honor. It should be made of gilded marble and be large enough to be seen from space. You're welcome.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
What else is there to figure out?
How to make unicode work on slashdot...
Guess that means... (Score:3, Funny)
'The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale...
Last call.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
That will all change after she goes through puberty.
Prof Guinan? WTF? (Score:1, Funny)
Since when is a fuckin' El-Aurian barkeeper qualified to judge a planet's inhabitability? Them loserboys couldn't even defend their own against some pasty-faced Borg and let themselves be shit upon without a fight.
Fuckin' space nerds.
Then what they do? They get trapped into the hippy-space Nexus and managed to turn Captain Kirk, arguably one of the Galaxy's greatest jocks, into a whiny horse-riding loserboy.
Yo, Guinan, back to your synthalcohol drinks. Leave space to the jocks.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
What pressure does homo sapiens to evolve, given that our technological abilities largely shield us from the pressures of our environment?
Our technology itself. Hopefully. If we haven't figured out cybernetic immortality in a half a billion years, I'll be... well, dead, but disappointed.
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:1, Funny)
I think that's less ironic and more "+5 Ahead of Schedule"
Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score:5, Funny)
It should be made of gilded marble and be large enough to be seen from space. You're welcome.
Ok, we did that, but it melted and crumbled under the blazing heat. We live underground now. - The Future People.