Re: It's the final countdown!
 

Well, you only need to continue the countdown until no longer possible and then pass the torch. But on a brighter note, we got about 20cm snow the last two days. Went cross-country skiing all afternoon today. A bit tired now but so much fun!

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

Haven't gotten any snow at our oceanside altitude ...yet...for just going outside to cross country ...
Gotta go up - mountain for that right now...
Been nice and mild winter so far....with an average of 8 to 13 degrees celsius.

and Yup.
8 billion,
2 billion
hell 2 million...
Bloody hell 2000
even 200 years!
I will be surprised if we last the next twenty years...
No wait....make that 2 years....
A catastrophic collision 2 billion years from now ...no humans will be around to see.

Also....
absolutely right about the remote possibility of actual planetary collisions...
It is infinitesimal a chance.

BUT what WILL be catastrophic ....
WILL be the gravitational forces FROM those planetary bodies passing each other ...
Disrupting the natural normal unhindered cyclical movements they do in their solar years...
THAT will be the catastrophic part.
The havoc will definitely be terrible.

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

Do we know how much hydrogen we have left in OUR tiny star?

Yes, the sun will eventually burn out. But not for a long, long time. The sun has used up about half of its hydrogen fuel in the last 4.6 billion years, since its birth. It still has enough hydrogen to last about another 5 billion years.

So we have only 5 billion years to go :)

To bad we couldn’t fast forward 1 billion year. Do you think it would make your self understud with languges of today. I bet we would’t Survive a day year 1000002020

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

No, it has not. It is a common misconception and an easy mistake to make.

Our sun is a second, if not third generation star. That means the hydrogen it is burning comes from an earlier star that, supposedly, had used up out all its hydrogen and exploded in a supernova. How is that possible?

Easy: the earlier star did not use up all its hydrogen. Only the hydrogen taking part in the nuclear reaction. Which is only a small part in the star's core. The most of it in the stellar body and atmosphere would have remained untouched. The shock of the supernova explosion would have turned some of that to heavier elements but the vast majority remained for the next generation star.

Our sun does not have enough oomph to become a supernova which means it will last longer than its predecessor(s) but it will still not use up all its hydrogen before its candle goes out.

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

Examples of other things not using up all their fuel:

• We only use about 20% of the oxygen we breathe in. The air we breathe out is still rich enough in oxygen to give a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
• The feces of all animals including humans are rich in nutrients, as exemplified by the flies and dung beetles feeding on them (or humans using them as fuel). Some animals even eat their own droppings to give them a chance to pass through the system again and extract the nutrients wasted the first time.
• Only about 1.5% of the uranium used in the greatest terrorist attack of all time (the Hiroshima bomb) was involved in the nuclear reaction, and only about 0.001% (0.6 grams) actually turned into energy. That just gives an idea of how efficient nuclear reactions are. The rest of the uranium was evaporated and scattered in the atmosphere, potentially available for a second or even third generation bomb, the same way hydrogen is reused in stars.

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

So that means we can survive a supernova. Just duck and cover at the right time and place!

Question: how do you know that the assumption/calculation above doesn’t mean the complete set of star quality fuel?

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

Brexit: Should they stay or should they go?

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

Leave of course. Wasn’t that what the poeple wanted? I think the discussion should be about a wall around the kingdom. And how high.

Boris still in the game?

https://www.sundaypost.com/wp-conten...7a-900x540.jpg

Where is the bar?

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

I think the British got buyers remorse!

Re: It's the final countdown!
 

What does that mean? You mean they vote leave but really wanted to stay?

Sounds counter-productive to me. Unless they get a new improved deal :D

No cool devices at CES?

Have to wait for x10 X to see what 2019 will bring to the table with plenty of cams and mem.