I need to recommend Astronomy Cast to anyone interested in this stuff, simply because it's so good. They cover individual astronomy topics in 30 minute shows.
And if Gilese's ability to send a ton of comets into the inner Solar System scares you, you might want to miss the "Death From The Skies" episode where they cover all of the myriad of ways we could get wiped out in way less than 1 million years ;-) http://www.astronomycast.com/people/interviews/ep-112-death-...
Orange Dwarfs are similar to our Sun and may be good candidates for life sustaining planets. This might be a good opportunity to explore extra-solar planets for life or even seed that system with life or similarly organized systems. Then we would have two systems awaiting the next fly by and so on....
True, but since we have > 1 million years to go, I'd suspect (make that "dearly hope!") we'll have either died out or otherwise not consider ourselves limited to the Solar System by that point :-)
I am hoping that some form of intelligent life still exists here in a million years.
I'd like to hope that we will not be limited to the solar system too. For plans we know will work based on the physics we know now, this is it. Better a pedestrian plan that will work than a plan that hopes that fantastic technology is developed in the future.
For plans we know will work based on the physics we know now, this is it.
Not really. Physics, as we understand it, and even the technology we know will work now (e.g. ion drives) can get us to other star systems - it's just there isn't much point considering how much time it'd take and how little danger we're in right now. Dr. Pamela Gay covered this in an episode of Astronomy Cast: http://www.astronomycast.com/space-flight/ep-145-interstella...
That said, I always work on the theory that our current understanding of anything is extremely limited. This works on macro and micro scales, from how we understand the Internet right up to physics. What we know about almost anything now compared to 100 years ago is black and white - barring blowing each other to bits or a major catastrophe, there's no reason to believe we won't be ridiculing our pitiful 2010 level of understanding of the universe in 2110.
Now I bet that's something those astronomers haven't thought of. They're so cool with their, predicting events that will happen a million years from now via the information gleaned from a few tiny pricks of light in the sky (damn they are amazing!), I bet they can't figure out what will be in fashion on the alien planets that pass by. :P
I am constantly amazed by what astronomers seem to be able to do.
There's an episode all about the Oort Cloud and the interstellar medium (the regions Gilese would be skirting past) in http://www.astronomycast.com/astronomy/episode-65-the-end-of...
And if Gilese's ability to send a ton of comets into the inner Solar System scares you, you might want to miss the "Death From The Skies" episode where they cover all of the myriad of ways we could get wiped out in way less than 1 million years ;-) http://www.astronomycast.com/people/interviews/ep-112-death-...