Don’t worry, people! We have a plan for moving the Earth.

In half a billion eld , the sun will swell up like a pufferfish and induce the Earth to become a parched moonscape , devoid of all but microbic life . But do n’t occupy about it . Scientists have a plan for moving the Earth to a more habitable geographical zone . And all it ’ll take is ten million years .

actuate the Earth may be the only means to save humanity , once the sun ’s outer layers thrive . If the Earth does n’t get out of the path , its water and atmosphere will boil away into distance , and then our planet will fall into the sun itself . That ’s not going to work for us — so sometime before then , if we want to keep using the Earth as a menage stem , we ’re going to have to move it back a mo . Working from the possibility that you should never put off for a billion old age what you could do today , scientists add up up with a plan .

The good intelligence is that the rationale behind this plan has not only existed but been in enjoyment since the 1970s . It ’s called a gravitational force assist , and we ’ve been using it to get artificial satellite to change their flight , and speed up or slow down , since then . The first major usage was when Voyager 2 contract a boost from Jupiter to get to Saturn , then got an assistance from Saturn and Uranus to make its way outwards . This principle has been used to slow down satellites — Galileo was slowed down by Io so it could pass by Jupiter — and to get satellite that have mistake in trajectory , like a geosynchronous orbiter that did n’t quite sync up , to the right speed and berth . gravitational attraction assists provide maximal bang for the buck , and can get satellites going at pep pill far outstanding than any literal fuel could .

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The idea is simple . Get a satellite nigh to a major planet and the planet ’s gravity will take hold of hold of it . If the orbiter is head straight towards a planet , it will just fall right into the major planet and go splat on the ground . ( Or whoosh through the gas , or sizzle near the substance , or crack on the ice rink , bet on the planet in question . ) If it ’s moving at an angle to the planet , though it ’ll still get pulled by gravity , which will add to its momentum — but it ’ll fall around the curve of the satellite , and escape back into blank . It would be a small like take hold of handgrip of a booster as they run by you . You might be able to pull them towards you , changing their instruction and even speeding them up , but then they ’d pull spare and speed away from you again .

Since the artificial satellite is gaining new guidance and more momentum , the satellite is also changing centering and momentum . Since the planet is so much self-aggrandising than the satellite , we wo n’t much notice the satellite ’s change . The plan is to increase the size of the satellite , to leash in a big asteroid , and sling it around the Earth . The asteroid would be the size of Long Island and have solar powered skyrocket . The asteroid ’s nearby flight of stairs will cause the Earth to change impulse , tugging it away from the sun and out of the danger geographical zone .

The bad newsworthiness is this is neither a fast nor an soft physical process . It would have to be repeat no less than six thousand times . Some estimates say it could take up to a million times . In between passes , the asteroid would have to go to Jupiter or Saturn , which would soberness - assist the asteroid back to Earth . Each pass would take the asteroid between 16,000 and 10,000 miles away from the Earth . Any mistake would either lose the asteroid , or would have the asteroid to hit Earth , kill every unmarried matter on it , with the possible exception of microbes . Still , compared to a fall into the sun , it ’s got ta be the good choice , right-hand ?

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Not if you live on the glide . The asteroid ’s overstretch on the tides would be ten times the pull of the Moon . It would stimulate storm , tsunami , and chaotic seasonal changes . We ’d also have to calculate its strait , so it would n’t change the gyration of the Earth and give us , say , a twenty - three - hour day . Even if we did move the Earth , ideally to about where Mars is right now , we ’d have a different cranial orbit around the sunshine , and we ’d have Mars as a gonzo new neighbor , which might also take on hell with our own ambit . What ’s the potential up side ? Another five billion age of habitability on Earth . Right now , it looks like we might have , at the outside , about three billion — with things getting bad at the half a billion sign . I do n’t know about you , but five billion more years on Earth seems like it would be worth , say , forty million year ’ work . Who require to get depart on those solar powered rocket ?

Top Image : NASA / NOAA / GSFC / Suomi NPP / VIIRS / Norman Kuring

Galileo Image : NASA

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