In response to the threat of our
sun becoming 11% hotter in the next 1.1 billion years, hard working
scientists may have an answer that could move Earth into a “cooler” orbit. The plan devised by
Don Korycansky and his partners in
science involves attaching a
fusion powered
rocket or
solar sail to an asteroid some 62 miles wide and “nudging” it from it’s home in the
Kuiper Belt orbiting in the region of
Pluto into a new orbit closer to Earth.
This near miss every 6000 years would give the Earth a gravity tug to help us move from our 93 million mile distance from the sun, to a new
orbit of 140 million miles.
Possible side effects from playing marbles with the
heavenly bodies are:
- Mars and Venus seem to need the earth to stay in their orbits.
- These “tugs” could accelerate the Earth’s rotation, shortening days to just a few hours.
- The moon would not necessarily care to move with us to our new address, playing havoc with the tides .
- Jupiter could move some 10 million miles closer to the sun, dislodging it’s asteroid belt to rain down upon the Earth.
- And of course, a little ill math could put this 62 mile wide rock into an orbit that has it slamming into the earth which would sterilize the biosphere.
This all says to me that the human race is very close to extending its
self-centered destructive capability to the stars.
The human race is amazing and I have every confidence that we will be able to figure out how to destroy the Universe within our lifetime.