Will we survive for the next 5 billions years?

So, we all know that our lovely planet Earth has been around for about 4.54 billions years.  Our planet Earth was born from the solar nebula of the Sun. We are also dependent on our star, the Sun, to suspense life on Earth. We also know that the Sun, just like any other star, has a life cycle and will eventually run out of its fuel, hydrogen, in roughly 5 billions years. When the Sun dies, it will take Earth and the whole solar system with it. With all that known, do you think Earth’s fate and mankind’s is with the Sun?

I think so, too. We will likely die with the Sun once it goes supernova. However, considering human’s intelligence and abilities, looking back at human history, looking back what we have achieved, I think mankind will not let its fate settled with the Sun. But will we survive for another 5 billions years? That is a different question. We are more likely to destroy ourselves than being destroyed because of a supernova from our Sun.

            According to Dr. Michio Kaku, a well-known theoretical physicist, a civilization can be categorized into one of the 4 stages, type zero, one, two or three.

Type one civilization is what we are today. We get energy from the earth’s resources and from the sun. We are dependent and cannot suspense our own life.

Type two civilization is what he calls planetary civilization. Type two civilization is when we control our energy resources. We control everything that is planetary, everything on Earth. If everything goes smoothly, we will and have to achieve this type in about 100 years when we run out of Earth natural resources.  We are on the transition to type one civilization and according to Dr. Kaku, this is the most dangerous period. We are advancing our civilization, but together with that, we also have nuclear, chemical, biological weapon that is capable of destroying human race.

Type two civilization is stellar which is what we want to get to survive the supernova of our sun. This is when we become immortal. Nothing can that is known today can destroy us at this stage. Type three is everything beyond stellar, galactic. We will be able to control everything in galaxies. How fun is that?

Ultimately, we have much greater chance to control our own fact if we survive for the next 100 years. So all we have to do is avoiding conflicts and avoiding nuclear wars, right? Hopefully, our civilization will get to the galactic type civilization and hopefully our next generations will remember us in their history books. 

(Source: “What is the likelihood that mankind will destroy itself?”, thinkbig.com) 

Traveling at speed of light

        As we already know, to study distant objects, astronomers have to use telescopes to collect data and observe. I am sure that astronomers would want to come close to their objects than seeing them through lenses. Given the current technology that we have, traveling close to distant objects is unrealistic. With that said, what if we could travel close to speed of light? Astronomers can achieve much more than they have today. However, would we want to travel at speed of light? What it feels like to travel at close to light’s speed. The above video was found on NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day website. 

From NASA: First of all, relativistic aberration would cause objects to appear to bunch up in front you. Next, the Doppler shift would cause the colors of forward objects to shift toward the blue, while things behind you would shift toward the red. Similarly, the world in front of you would seem to move unusually fast, while the world behind you would appear to slow down. Objects to the sides will appear rotated, possibly enabling surfaces normally hidden from you to become visible. Of course, since constant motion is relative, the same effects would occur were you to remain stationary and the entire world advanced toward you.

What do you think an astronomer does?

The simple answer to this question can be as simple as “ an astronomer studies astronomy.” Astronomy is the “study of objects and matter outside the earth's atmosphere and of their physical and chemical properties”(Weber dictionary). However, this is a modest answer because we do not know exactly what astronomers do everyday. Broadly, astronomers study everything in the universe, such as stars, celestial planets, and galaxies and others objects. They study about the formation, composition and evolution of celestial bodies, stars, galaxies of the universe and the universe as the whole.

Of course astronomers do not study everything that presents in the universe since the universe is so vast and despite the fast technological advancement, astronomers’ study tools are still very limited. Most astronomers specialize and focus only on one field of astronomy only. Some astronomers study about the origin of the universe, its origin, evolution and even its end. Some other astronomers are interested on one particular planet, on galaxy or star. They study about the object’s composition, evolution, and characteristics. Other astronomers work on developing tool and method to observe and analyze close and distant planets, stars or galaxies.

As we already know, astronomy is different from other branches of science is that astronomers cannot do experiments with their objects as the universe is so large. In order to study distant object and to analyze with limited data, they need to be specialized and have a deep understanding of every science.

Astronomers study distant objects far away from the Earth. They collect most of their data using telescopes, either on Earth or orbiting satellites. Astronomers rely heavily on light and its properties to collect, read and analyze data from telescopes. They also need to study and have vast knowledge in every branch of science to not only analyze data but also to develop techniques and tools to collect important data. They do not work with telescope all the time but they need to study the related field and work to improve their observational, interpretation skill.