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Hot temp

Jimmy

I have always existed
Do you think species will evolve to withstand the hot temperatures that are coming in two billion years or will we go extinct?
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Well, humans as we know them presently will not be around 2 billion years from now (or even a few million years from now), so there's no "we" in that picture. None of our present biodiversity will be around; it'll all be different/new species. So our frame of reference does not provide adequate information to make any good assessment. The most we can observe is that extremophiles already exist presently on Earth, and there's not much reason to suppose they will stop existing (or evolving to exist) on Earth.
 

Jimmy

I have always existed
Well, humans as we know them presently will not be around 2 billion years from now (or even a few million years from now), so there's no "we" in that picture. None of our present biodiversity will be around; it'll all be different/new species. So our frame of reference does not provide adequate information to make any good assessment. The most we can observe is that extremophiles already exist presently on Earth, and there's not much reason to suppose they will stop existing (or evolving to exist) on Earth.
I'll take that as a no
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
Do you think species will evolve to withstand the hot temperatures that are coming in two billion years or will we go extinct?

Some will and survive albeit in a different form, some are already well adapted to those hotter temperature and others won't change much and will either go extinct or be reduced further and further in terms of possible habitat.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Oh i see u said "as we know"

We know that there extremeophiles alive today in hot springs, so it would not be a stretch for life to mutate to allow for a much hotter environment. But, it is not likely that the temperatures inside of a red giant are conducive to life.

I suspect that as the sun ages and grows into its red giant phase. species will evolve to tolerate hotter temperatures over the period of tens to hundreds of millions of years.

Whether any human descendants will remain is a very different question.

Another aspect to this question is that 2 billion years is a long time. if you go into the past 2 billion years, the only life on Earth was single celled. Multicellular life didn't show up for about another billion years.

So, to extrapolate to 2 billion years in the future is going WAY beyond any reasonable predictivity.
 

Onoma

Active Member
I think that after that much time had passed, our technology would make us a type II civilization on the Kardashev scale and we'd be able to fully harness the output of our star ( If we hadn't relocated to another planet in the Milky Way )
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I think that after that much time had passed, our technology would make us a type II civilization on the Kardashev scale and we'd be able to fully harness the output of our star ( If we hadn't relocated to another planet in the Milky Way )

Either that, or long extinct. I'd bet on the latter.
 

Daemon Sophic

Avatar in flux
Either that, or long extinct. I'd bet on the latter.
The sad part of me agrees with you but I truly hope that we, as the first spacefaring species on earth, will continue our outward expansion.
Of couse we could all go extinct and have time for several more full rounds of dinosaurs to rise and go extinct. Maybe one dominant life form will have strong IQ’s and less prevalence for self-deception and violence than us. :shrug:

Anyways.....life after red giant expansion of the star we know as Sol? No.
DNA denatures over 100 C. Even the toughest bacterial extremophiles can only be briefly roasted by boiling water temps before kicking their very tiny buckets. When Sol goes red giant, our planet will melt away into spacebound lava.
 

Brickjectivity

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Do you think species will evolve to withstand the hot temperatures that are coming in two billion years or will we go extinct?
As for me...I think we are Earthbound. We might make it to Mars or some nearby planets, but we're dependent on all the germs and things that live here on Earth. The farther away we are the more danger there is of running out of the bacteria we need to digest food. Plus everywhere we go we need many things that only Earth has in plenty: gravity and not too much or too little. We need light not too much or too little, heat not too much or too little, distractions and fun, friends...all kinds of things. We are extremely fragile...like goldfish. There are many things here on Earth that we would either get sick without or which we might go insane without.

Not only this but space travel is slow...very slow and so very dangerous. You can only go so fast, and even at top theoretical (and unattainable) velocities you need hundreds of years to reach another star. That means you're living on a ship for centuries....centuries not years or months. You get halfway and you're not only centuries from your destination but also centuries from Earth. If you get a leak in your tank or have any trouble on that long, long voyage you are on your own. You're going to need a spaceship that is so large that it will have to be constructed in orbit. Your main problem with your ship will be keeping its contents from freezing, and your second biggest problem will be keeping out cosmic energies that will radioactively cook you right through the walls. At the end of the trip you'll be fortunate if anything larger than a bacterium survives.
 

Jimmy

I have always existed
As for me...I think we are Earthbound. We might make it to Mars or some nearby planets, but we're dependent on all the germs and things that live here on Earth. The farther away we are the more danger there is of running out of the bacteria we need to digest food. Plus everywhere we go we need many things that only Earth has in plenty: gravity and not too much or too little. We need light not too much or too little, heat not too much or too little, distractions and fun, friends...all kinds of things. We are extremely fragile...like goldfish. There are many things here on Earth that we would either get sick without or which we might go insane without.

Not only this but space travel is slow...very slow and so very dangerous. You can only go so fast, and even at top theoretical (and unattainable) velocities you need hundreds of years to reach another star. That means you're living on a ship for centuries....centuries not years or months. You get halfway and you're not only centuries from your destination but also centuries from Earth. If you get a leak in your tank or have any trouble on that long, long voyage you are on your own. You're going to need a spaceship that is so large that it will have to be constructed in orbit. Your main problem with your ship will be keeping its contents from freezing, and your second biggest problem will be keeping out cosmic energies that will radioactively cook you right through the walls. At the end of the trip you'll be fortunate if anything larger than a bacterium survives.
Right
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Do you think species will evolve to withstand the hot temperatures that are coming in two billion years or will we go extinct?

You think this is a useful question? Could you predict what we might be like in a hundred or a thousand years let alone so far into the future?
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Do you think species will evolve to withstand the hot temperatures that are coming in two billion years or will we go extinct?
Science gives us much less than that. The sun is expected to turn into a Red giant in 5 billion years, but it will heat the earth in about one billion year's time to make living impossible. But as Polymath said, to survive even that long also will be very strange.
 
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