Mostly they only come out at night.....

Mostly.........

Um, I just ran across something I hadn't read before... It goes without saying that the sun dying would also cause a mass extinction, right? Well... Nothing will be alive to see it, if this is true...

The eventual warming and expanding of the Sun, combined with the eventual decline of atmospheric carbon dioxide could actually cause an even greater mass extinction, having the potential to wipe out even microbes, where rising global temperatures caused by the expanding Sun will gradually increase the rate of weathering, which in turn removes more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When carbon dioxide levels get too low (perhaps at 50 ppm), all plant life will die out, although simpler plants like grasses and mosses can survive much longer, until CO2 levels drop to 10 ppm. With all plants gone, atmospheric oxygen can no longer be replenished (except by algae), and is eventually removed by chemical reactions in the atmosphere, perhaps from volcanic eruptions. Eventually the loss of oxygen will cause all remaining multicellular life to die out via asphyxiation, leaving behind only microbes. When the Sun becomes 10% brighter, microbes too will die out. This is the most extreme instance of a climate-caused extinction event. Since this will only happen late in the Sun's life, such will cause the final mass extinction in Earth's history.

entrappedmind said
That's one thing people rarely take into consideration... Whether we colonize another planet in our galaxy or not may be irrelevant. Our sun will die one day, as all stars do. And when it does, or begins to, it'll likely happen with little warning.

 

It may have happened already.

It happened two days before the day after tomorrow.

Oh...My...God.......That's today 

scruffy said
now we are talking about some extremely elongated timelines.  

  

remember, weve only been around for, what, ten thousand years?  

thats only around five hundred generations.  

  

Well, of course, but it still bears consideration. I mean, how are we to know the age of the sun relative to the age of our planet or those that share the same system? (If we do know, forgive me, I'm ignorant of it and haven't taken the time to Google prior to replying)

Can I get somebody to stop scruffy from responding to my posts? I mean, I keep thinking I know something, and here comes scruff dropping knowledge on me and pissing on my parade. ;)

Just kidding, my friend, I appreciate being set straight. Keep up the good work. Maybe, just maybe, one day I can return the favor (but I ain't holding my breath lol).