3 ms·

>Btw, we can conceivable move the earth or keep the sun from going red giant. I think you are seriously underestimating or misconceptualizing how much energy t

>Btw, we can conceivable move the earth or keep the sun from going red giant. I think you are seriously underestimating or misconceptualizing how much energy that would take. Even in a very ideal timeline where we get FTL or near FTL travel technology there is no way conceivable way to do what you are talking about: both moving the earth or engineering the sun. Just visually look at the size of the sun in comparison to Earth: https://www.universetoday.com/65356/how-many-earths-can-fit-in-the-sun/ https://www.universetoday.com/65356/how-many-earths-can-fit-... And if we COULD (which again, very very unlikely) do those things we simply just wouldn't -- living on earth or in this solar system would be irrelevant.

eru 3y ago
> I think you are seriously underestimating or misconceptualizing how much energy that would take. No, I am not underestimating that. Yes, it takes a prodigious amount of energy to move the earth, but hundred million years is a long time, too; and the sun gives off a lot of energy. Today, most of the energy that the sun gives off is wasted. We are not too far off the technology needed to build a swarm of satellites that catch an appreciable fraction of that energy. (It's called a Dyson swarm.) We could sacrifice eg Mercury to get the mass for that; the sun itself will deliver the energy needed to run the fabrication process. Ideally we figure out how to build self-replicating machines. But even if the process of building the swarm takes a few million years, that's fine for our purposes. You could use the energy to eg run a crazy amount of ion drives on our moon's surface. You'd use the moon as a gravitational tuck to very slowly move the earth. About engineering the sun, have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw20VbX1XCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw20VbX1XCc My sketch for how to move the earth is also inspired by videos from that YouTube channel. He has all the math that I didn't put in here. He also has some videos about how to move the sun. See also https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a10885/the-shkadov-thruster-or-how-to-move-an-entire-solar-system-17000392/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a10885/the... if you want to read rather than listen to a video. Or https://www.gregschool.org/gregschoollessons/2017/9/21/shkadov-thruster-ljar4-xp8c5 https://www.gregschool.org/gregschoollessons/2017/9/21/shkad...

eru 3y ago

> I think you are seriously underestimating or misconceptualizing how much energy that would take. No, I am not underestimating that. Yes, it takes a prodigious amount of energy to move the earth, but hundred million years is a long time, too; and the sun gives off a lot of energy. Today, most of the energy that the sun gives off is wasted. We are not too far off the technology needed to build a swarm of satellites that catch an appreciable fraction of that energy. (It's called a Dyson swarm.) We could sacrifice eg Mercury to get the mass for that; the sun itself will deliver the energy needed to run the fabrication process. Ideally we figure out how to build self-replicating machines. But even if the process of building the swarm takes a few million years, that's fine for our purposes. You could use the energy to eg run a crazy amount of ion drives on our moon's surface. You'd use the moon as a gravitational tuck to very slowly move the earth. About engineering the sun, have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw20VbX1XCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw20VbX1XCc My sketch for how to move the earth is also inspired by videos from that YouTube channel. He has all the math that I didn't put in here. He also has some videos about how to move the sun. See also https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a10885/the-shkadov-thruster-or-how-to-move-an-entire-solar-system-17000392/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a10885/the... if you want to read rather than listen to a video. Or https://www.gregschool.org/gregschoollessons/2017/9/21/shkadov-thruster-ljar4-xp8c5 https://www.gregschool.org/gregschoollessons/2017/9/21/shkad...