Posted on 12/11/2004 11:15:46 AM PST by SamAdams76
We'd get a couple weeks of truly awesome skiing.
I'm pretty sure it would expand and go supernova before it collapsed and ' went out'. The first event would effectively roast most of the solar system, and the second would not have any witnesses.
Seriousness aside- the sun going out would probably be the ONLY way we'd get a REAL winter, and a white Christmas, in New Orleans.
I'd settle for it being moved just a bit farther out, but then nuclear winter sounds like a good thing to me! LOL
I keep a flashlight handy just in case it does go out.
John
Of course, it's possible that technology would allow a very small population of humans to survive, ....
Doctor Strangelove: "Mein Furher, er, I mean Mr. President, I should think we could use some of our deepest mineshafts for living space as a means of preserving our civilization... "
General "Buck" Turgidson: "Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?"
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
Definitively.
Sudbury Solar Neutrino Observatory, a few years back. The "missing" neutrinos were there all along, but had undergone a "flavor" change enroute, and the early neutrino detectors were sensitive to only one flavor. The upgraded to detectors capable of detect all three flavors of neutrinos, and there they were, just as theory predicted they should be.
The Sun will not just wink out like a candle burning out, the nature of the fusion reaction fueling it and its position on the HR diagram means that it will first expand to a Red Giant engulfing the Earth as it expands out to the the Earth's orbit, then it will explode in a nova, then contract back down into a brown dwarf, then die out. There's no way any life on earth can survive that. Heck, there's no way earth itself can survive that. Earth will become a part of the Sun in the Red Giant stage.
No, it's a George Harrison song along with "While my Guitar Gently Weeps."
Women, minorities to be hit hardest.
Don't know what would happen, but I am sure women and minorities would be hurt the worst.
Something akin to it was also covered in a short story "A Pail of Air". The premise being that every so often, they have to go outside and get a pailful of the frozen blue stuff (oxygen) that was all over.
This is bogus logic. The Earth itself depends on the Sun's gravity to a degree to initiate the geothermal activity within its core. Without it, no organism at all would survive. Everything on Earth depends on solar energy of one type or another. Earth would become a lifeless rock, rapidly moving away from its former position towards interstellar space.
That's if it were simply to snuff out, which is unlikely. More than likely, it would swell to a thousand times its normal size and fry the Earth to a cinder first before collapsing and starting up the deep freeze.
Did you ever catch the episode of "The Outer Limits" (the new one) where a scientist was convinced one evening that the Sun had gone supernova on the dayside of the planet? Turns out it was simply an unusually large solar flare. It was interesting to see how everyone decided to spend their last minutes.
Consider what (or Who) made it start up in the first place.
If solar fusion stopped today, it would be about 1,000,000 years before the sun cooled sufficiently that we might even begin to know about it, strangely enough. Fusion takes place deep inside the core of the sun. It takes millions of years for the heat generated to make its way to the surface where it radiates and we can feel it.
What if the sun WERE to go out. WERE to go out. (subjunctive mood, my friend)
At any rate, I would not worry about it if I were you, because if it WERE to go out, you would stop worrying about everything, and in short order.
If I recall correctly, that was one of comedian Stephen Wright's lines. As is my new tag line.
Woman in audience: "Did you say the Earth is likely to be destroyed in twenty million years?"
Astronomer: "No, ma'am. I said twenty billion years."
Woman [obviously relieved]: "Oh, thank God."
Micheal Moore would make a movie called "Fahrenheit -911" and try to convince America "it's GWBs fault.
This war would be all about "Big Steam" and be solely to benefit Bush's cronies.......
;-)
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