[sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

[Detonate]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

Are we not on a spaceship now? Does anyone know where we are going and when we will get there?

[Qqmike]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

Apart from collision with asteroids and man-made destruction of Earth, isn't it the case that at some point (x billions of years) the sun will burn out (please substitute a better technical term) and that will be that (=> we will freeze)?

[Snowhog]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

Acutally, we wouldn't freeze. Our sun will eventually become a red giant, and the earth will not survive its expansion phase.
How will the sun die?
Will Earth Survive When the Sun Becomes a Red Giant?

[Qqmike]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

red giant ... I had read that, too. But somewhere (also) I got the idea that the sun would "exhaust itself" (deplete all its hydrogen explosions or whatever -- too tired tonight to make this precise -- GG -- where are you? at which point, no sun heat, we freeze ... ).

[Qqmike]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

ok, got it ...

http://www.universetoday.com/53979/w...-sun-burn-out/

The red giant expansion will fry us before the contraction/cooling/burn out freezes us.

[Detonate]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

You can drive yourself crazy lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, and pondering all of this.

[vinnywright]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

You can drive yourself crazy lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, and pondering all of this.

Don't do that!!:

It's just knot worth it. We all die somewhere between 70 and 100 , or sooner!
So just try to be happy as you can with what you have wile you have it, and try to help
the life around you to flourish as this will accentuate the proces of all being happy.


VINNY

[Snowhog]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

Don't worry to much 'bout the sun doing in the Earth. It won't happen for several billion years. It is almost 100% certain that humanity will do itself in well before then.

[GreyGeek]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

.....
..... We all die somewhere between 70 and 100 , or sooner!
.....

c

mmmm.... I turned 70 two minutes ago, when Aug 8th ticked one second old. I'm taking my wife to dinner and she is baking me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and my kids and grand kids are coming over tomorrow night for ice cream and cake.

Except for the fact that never sit on the ground because I can barely get off the ground I feel no different than when I was 69!!!

[GreyGeek]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

http://www.scienceinschool.org/2006/issue3/fusion

When we think about the centre of the Sun, we image some fierce, fiery furnace, blasting out heat. With a density 150 times that of water (half a litre of Sun weighs as much as an average person), and a temperature of 15 000 000 degrees Celsius, it is a pretty daunting environment by any standards. But if you were to take a cubic metre from the centre of the Sun, you would find that it only produces about 30 Watt, hardly enough to power a light bulb. It is the sheer size of the Sun that ensures that we actually feel warm on Earth.

At the moment, the Sun burns 600 million tonnes of hydrogen each second, turning it into 596 million tonnes of helium. Where did the missing four million tonnes go? It has been completely transformed into energy. Applying E=mc2 (with E the energy, m the mass, and c the speed of light), we find that 4 million tonnes of matter equate to 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 Kilowatt-hours of energy, or roughly one million times the amount of energy that the entire world uses in a year. And that energy is released by the Sun every second. Now that’s solar power!

So far, the Sun has burned up half of its hydrogen fuel supply. It has been burning for five billion years, and will burn for another five billion. What then? Then the party is over. The Sun will swell up to become a ‘red giant’, boiling away the atmosphere and all water and life on our home planet. We’d better get out before that time, but let’s enjoy it while it lasts.

The Wikipedia also has a nice article about stars.

One can get a rough estimate of the amount of energy radiating from the Sun by measuring the amount of energy falling on one square meter at the equator at Noon for each second. Multiply that by the area of a sphere with a radius equal to the Earth's average orbit. Then use E=mC^2 to compute the mass the Sun burns each second. You can get an approximation that is within an order of magnitude of the actual value.

[bsniadajewski]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

Well, Happy Birthday! GreyGeek.

[GreyGeek]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

Thanks!

The kids and the grand kids were over for Chocolate cake and ice cream, and an evening of fun. They just left.

Seventy doesn't feel any different than a 28 year old who just finished the marathon.

[Qqmike]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

On my daily walks around the neighborhood, I pass by Charlie's house. Retired military, alone, looks like maybe he's 70-75-ish. Always leaves his garage door open, starting at 6 am. He's got two lawn chairs set up in the garage entrance and a small table. Neighbors tell me he does his morning walk, then sits there and drinks beer. While walking the other day, he happened to pass me walking in the street, about 6:30 am. He was over-joyed, told me to wish him his 84th happy birthday! Eight-four! You'd never know by looking at him. Must be the beer.

[Detonate]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

I'm a lot like your friend Charley. I sit on the front porch smoking my cigar. I don't drink beer anymore because I have TypeII Diabetes, but I am retired military, and I take a walk every day. I turned 70 in May this year. I took charge of my health a couple of years ago, and I lost 80 lbs and got back in shape. I now weigh the same as I did when I was in the Army, 150 lbs. I feel great. Blood glucose is under control, blood pressure is 130/70, all my lab work is normal, my doc says he thinks I will live to 100.

[dibl]

Re: [sigh]I hope I'm just being really paranoid...[/sigh]

I took charge of my health a couple of years ago, and I lost 80 lbs and got back in shape. I now weigh the same as I did when I was in the Army, 150 lbs. I feel great. Blood glucose is under control, blood pressure is 130/70, all my lab work is normal, my doc says he thinks I will live to 100.

Now that is impressive -- nice job! I need to do that. No health issues (yet) except for minor hypertension, but I'll soon be 61 and I'm carrying around 30 excess pounds. The transition into retirement is still a work in progress -- the theoretical drop in stress level isn't materializing quite like I had imagined ....