In three billion years time... ouch.

[NiGHTMARE]

I watched a rather startling program last night that claims that, in 3 billion years time, our entire galaxy will be destroyed. Obviously none of us will be around by then, but it gives pause for thought. This is how it will happen...

Planets and stars slightly distort the fabric of space-time (if you don't believe the time part, explain how you move slightly (_very_ slightly) slower in time when in an aircraft, and besides, it's been proven by many physicists). Black holes completely rip it apart.

Imagaine a 2D grid. The planets cause a slight dip, the stars a bigger one. Blackholes create a huge funnel that leads to a singularity (which NO-ONE understands, all we know is that the known laws of physics cease to exist there).

In fact, it is now believe that black holes are responsible for the birth of galaxies:

1) after the big bang (which was probably started by there being too much energy (aka the universal constant) and not enough matter (well, there was none, obviously)), all that existed in the universe were billions of massive hydrogen clouds.

2) for some reason, many of these clouds got so dense in the centre that it led to the formation of a super-massive black hole in the centre of each cloud.

3) these black holes sucked the surrounding hydrogen gas in so fast (almost at the speed of light, in fact) and in such vast quantities, that it caused the rest of the gas to ignite and contract, forming stars. How the planets got formed I'm still not sure about, but what the heck.

4) the black holes give off a huge halo of energy. Eventually this halo grows so large, it counter-acts the enormous gravitational pull of the black holes and pushed the nearby gas and stars away, causing to the black holes to suck in their halo and stop "feeding".

5) if a rogue star or gas cloud were to get near to the black hole, it would start feeding again, only in a very small amount. The equivalent to a light snack. The super-massive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy is believed to be doing this right now.

So basically there's a super-massive black hole at the centre of every galaxy. We can still see the halo's given off from the blackholes of distant galaxies (called "active galaxies"), and this is what it's now believed quasar's actually are.

So how will our galaxy be destroyed? Well, it appears our galaxy's nearest neighbour, Andromeda, is moving towards us. 1,000 km/second in fact, although of course in the vastness of space, that's nothing.

In around 3 billion years time, our two galaxies will collide (and that's a pretty much proven fact). The resulting chaos will cause stars to go supernova, and planets to go flying off in all directions. Some stars and planets will be sucked into the black holes, and they will start feeding again.

The two black holes, already growing in size once more, will be drawn towards each other by their own gravity, and will eventually merge to create a super-super-massive black hole.

What of Earth then? Well, if we're on the opposite side of the galaxy when the collision happens (just as the planets do, our galaxy rotates), we and our solar system go flying off into space, existing in the middle of nowhere. Although it's pretty unlikely that anyone will survive even if our solar system isn't completely knocked out of sync.

If we're on the same side of the galaxy as the collision, our atmosphere will boil off, the seas will boil off into space, and the earth will basically be completely toasted. Soon afterwards, we'll either be destroyed by colliding with another planet or star, or sucked into one of the black holes.

So basically, we're doomed. Except... Three billion years. Three BILLION years. If humanity is still around by then (and not killed off by an asteroid collision, over-crowding, global warming or by destroying the ozone layer), chances are we'll have some pretty damned advanced technology. We could evacuate to another galaxy, or we may even have the knowledge to stop the galaxies colliding.

If you think that last idea is pretty stupid, I'll say it again. Three BILLION years. Look how far we've come in the last 100 years...

[SoKatH]

Ummm yes....

S./

[Zaldron]

Ever heard of Stephen Hawking´s "A brief history of time"?? If you like cosmology, that´s the book for you. It´s hard to follow, but it covers plenty of stuff.
BTW, our technollogy curve is exponential, in 3 billion years humanity should understand completely the Universe´s way of working. We could alter it´s shape to our own purposes (if we don´t extinct before). Think of humans as our current Gods, our knowledge, intelligence, and technollogy would be so high, that it will blend together and become magic. Powerful magic.

[deadnail]

I doubt the Earth will survive for another 3 billion years anyhow. That's just gonna be the "If that little fucking rock is still there THIS'LL get rid of it!" final slate-wiping for sure deal.

Hell, if Humanity is still around in 1 billion years we'll probably destroy our own galaxy for the fuck of it. You know how stupid people are. Probably gonna be some Mega-Particle bomb the size of a refridgerator that takes out a few thousand light years of space.

"Whoops Bob, I think we miscalculated the blast radius."
"Well... fuck."

We fly off away from the sun, we freeze, we fly towards the sun and we cook. We slam into another planet or get sucked into a black hole, we cease to exist.

Sounds good to me.

Any way we can speed things up a bit? :)



Naturally, though, if we had those teleporters from Doom we could all just run like Hell through them, or we'd probably evacuate this nowhere speck in space a few million years before hand.

Now that'd be a video game story!

[Guest dmddoug]

that doesn't really have anything to do with doom but, i say we kill ourselfs in 50 so don't worry about the universe exploding. now lets all calm down and play a nice game of doom.

[Malice Rancor]

The last time I heard of Galaxies moving anywhere, it was further apart. If it is moving closer, then maybe it is in orbit with us. Usually things in the Universe are in orbit, not just flying in one direction. Im way out of there league with this stuff, but if one thing is for sure, it is that people are quick to jump the gun if it threatens the earth or the cosmos.

One scientist said our Universe was made from the BIG BANG, and that after a certain given time, there will be a BIG CRUSH. Which of course would destroy the whole Universe. This theory
was actually in some shcools science books. It showed a picture of the Universe looking just like a horse sattle.

Here is another example:

October 23,1999
A new particle accelerator slated to start smashing gold ions together next month in an effort to recreate matter from early universe poses no threat of destroying Earth or the cosmos. So concludes a three-physicist panel that reviewed fears that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) may unleash an insatiable black hole, a universe-altering transition, or strange matter that transforms all it touches (SN:8/7/99, p.95).
The "catastrophe" scenerios at RHIC are firmly excluded," the panel says in its Sept. 28 report. Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., certified RHIC as fully operational on Oct. 4. -P.W.

There is always the Y2k, this is something written Jan. 1st
January 1, 2000.

Alarm clock rang. Got up. Kettle, toaster worked. So far, so good. Peeped out of window for rioters. Saw none. Garage door still opened, motorcycle still started. Set off for work. Noticed traffic lights were ok. Looked around for crashed aircraft. Saw none. Still no rioters. Two revelers waved; I waved back. Arrived at TV station. Electric door still worked. All equipment okay. Checked computers. All okay except two. The remote studio controller thought it was 1980, but still controlled remotely. The other, handling Gaelic subtitles, thought it was 2001. Reset both. Checked other networks for rioters. Saw none. Watched the festivities from around the world. Opened emergency supplies (large jar of coffee), then set about tidying up the huge pile of program and commercial
back-up tapes that I knew I would no longer need..... Happy New Year to you all.
Anthony Langton Aberdeen, Scotland

Here is the 666 catastrophe:
http://www.av1611.org/666.html

Even Nasa has screwed up in this area. It was something about
an Astroid on a collision course with earth. I think our Moon is on a collision course with us too. It is slowly moving closer to earth, very very slowly. Our continents are also going to collide with each other. So many things are running into each other it is almost as if the whole Universe is drunk.

I'm sure there is much more, finding a reason for the world to end seems to be a massive human trend.

[Guest Spectre]

I saw a program about this (probably the exact same one) on the Discovery Channel not too long ago. Just imagine the sheer power. When two cars travelling 50 miles per hour slam into eachother head on, they are completely demolished in literally the blink of an eye. When Andromeda slams into our galaxy, our entire existence will be shut off like a light switch. It would happen even faster than flipping a light switch, it's hard to conceive just how fast it would happen. I presume there will more than likely be nothing left of our galaxy, nor of Andromeda.

Now just imagine what a view it will be the weeks before it happens. Maybe it will look like the skies in Doom!

[Guest deimos]

sweet...

[masterhassan]

SoKatH said:

Ummm yes....

S./

sokath i sencond that notion....um yes indeed

[NiGHTMARE]

Malice Rancor said:

No, Andromeda is definately moving towards us, as various astronomical observations have proven.

And about the Big Crunch... A group of astrophysicists recently came up with a new theory that corrects what they see as the flaws in Einstein's theory of relativity.

Basically they believe there is something called the "universal constant" which is energy found in the void of space. They think that when there is a big enough void, and hence enough energy, without matter (e.g. stars or planets), it causes a huge explosion, i.e. the big bang.

What they think is that all galaxies will continue moving away from one another forever (or until they're destroyed or whatever) in the same direction unless affected by gravity, just like a spaceship or a meteor.

nb: Obviously either our galaxy or Andromeda has been affected by some huge source of gravity, which is why we'll eventually collide rather than just move away from each other.

Eventually another huge void will be created, and there will be another big bang. So basically the universe will never end, it will just keep starting again, over and over, all the while growing with the galaxies from previous big bang.

Our group of galaxies may be the result of the first ever big bang, or there may have been billions before us. We simply have no way of knowing.

[Malice Rancor]

I wonder what it would look like if two galaxies hit each other, just think how long it will last. Our galaxy alone can be measured in light years and Andromeda isn't moving the speed of light. Once it makes impact it is going to last a long time.

[Psyonisis]

If you wanna see some pictures of galaxies colliding, just search for them on a hubble site. There's lot of pics

[Guest TossMonkey]

masterhassan said:

sokath i sencond that notion....um yes indeed

errr. actually the moon is moving away from us. It will break from orbit in about 3 thousand years. or was it 300 thousand years? aww damn.

I saw the programme. It was on BBC2 just a day ago on horizons. It was pretty F*cking cool.

[NiGHTMARE]

Yeah, Horizons is pretty cool, big concepts but presented in a relatively easy to understand manner. Although they do tend to explain the same thing too many times, and recycle there (admittedly nice) computer graphics a tad too often.

[stphrz]

In three billion years our galaxy will be destroyed?

*cries*

[Guest Lament]

NiGHTMARE said:

Yeah, Horizons is pretty cool, big concepts but presented in a relatively easy to understand manner. Although they do tend to explain the same thing too many times, and recycle there (admittedly nice) computer graphics a tad too often.

How the fuck will the galaxies _collide_ ? Galaxy is simply a lot of empty space with a star here and there. Distance between stars is _HUGE_. We're (the solar system) not flying towards alpha centauri, right? though it's only 6 light years from us. maybe if something HUGE will happen to be on that distance, it'll affect something. But that won't happen ;)
Two galaxies will just fly one through another and nothing else will happen.
:p

[Malice Rancor]

Our Galaxy isn't filled with as much space as you think. If you were as big as Earth or the Sun you would see allot less space.
Think if you were small enough to live on an electron as you do earth. The nucleus of that atom would seem extremely far, you would think there is tons of space between the electron and the necleus. Also an electron moves around the nucleus. But we are made of atoms and we move many other direction. Our galaxy is the same. A car can move north, but it is on earth which is moving another way.

Also even if an entire galaxy could pass right through our galaxy, the gravity from that entire galaxy would have a major effect on us, especially the center which consists of millions of stars and black holes. I can't see why you think it can't happen, especially since you don't seem to know much of anything about it. Scientists aren't perfect, but there not completely dense.

[Guest God of Damn]

Lament said:

How the fuck will the galaxies _collide_ ? Galaxy is simply a lot of empty space with a star here and there. Distance between stars is _HUGE_. We're (the solar system) not flying towards alpha centauri, right? though it's only 6 light years from us. maybe if something HUGE will happen to be on that distance, it'll affect something. But that won't happen ;)
Two galaxies will just fly one through another and nothing else will happen.
:p

____________________________________________________________
"We're (the solar system) not flying towards alpha centauri, right?"
____________________________________________________________

What our Earth is going to collide with the Sun?
What are you talking about I'm in a bus, we're driving
away from the Sun, not flying right towards it.

If your under twelve, then I can understand
13-15, your a little slow
16+ you need to lay off the smack
18+ you should kill yourself
30+ your still alive?
90+ don't worry about it, the earth is flat we're just kidding

[Guest Daemoneon]

Malice Rancor said:

to explain orbit in a more precice matter, you must understand that gravity will always be pulling you to one thing or another, whether you like it or not. what actually happens when you are orbiting something is you are falling around something, such as the Earth or the moon. You will never actually collide with a planet unless you force yourself to do so. Now, if we could only finish our study of quarks and figure out if there is a gravity quark, then there would be an anti-gravity quark, and we could defy the gravity of anything, including a black hole, which has infinite gravity, by producing, say, something like a WHITE hole (if that's what scientists would call it), which is infinite anti-gravity, to try and equalize the two. Think about that. Because my head hurts already from all of this stuff. 3 billion years? It's really not as long as you think.