The sun has been shining for four and a half billion years, but it'll be another six billion years before its fuel runs out. On that schematic picture, a sort of timeless picture, we're halfway. And it'll be another six billion before that happens, and any remaining life on Earth is vaporized. There's an unthinking tendency to imagine that humans will be there, experiencing the sun's demise, but any life and intelligence that exists then will be as different from us as we are from bacteria.It is crazy to think of, but is true none the less. The difference between us and the simplest bacteria is the product of no more than ~4 billion years of evolution.
Given that there is ~6 Billion years for life to evolve on earth before the sun takes it out, it is very possible that the creatures on earth then will be as different from us as we are from bacteria. (If not more!)
Slate needs to add that scenario.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To add a link to text:
<a href="URL">Text</a>