The Fate of our Planet?

Clifford at cosmic variance addresses a fundamental question about the need(?) to populate other planets, versus exploring?

Clifford:

And it would be nice if we did the exploration primarily out of curiosity and wonder, and not out of fear for our future

But of course, as with any thread there is a diversion of thought, so I answer this, while still trying to understand what he meant by the timescale?

A Blackhole ate my Planet?


It's almost worth following the trail of "Risk Assessment" here. Some might remember James Blodgett?

In recent years the main focus of fear has been the giant machines used by particle physicists. Could the violent collisions inside such a machine create something nasty? "Every time a new machine has been built at CERN," says physicist Alvaro de Rujula, "the question has been posed and faced."

Of course, refering to "cosmic particle collisions",then to have the "issues of strangelets" explained away as well. I mean every journey is fraught with the anxieties of fear. Fear of the unknownas one progresses along the roads to new worlds?



See:

RHIC Animations and Multimedia

Strangelet Search at RHIC by STAR Collaboration

We report results of the first strangelet search at RHIC. The measurement was done using a triggered data-set that sampled 61 million top 4% most central (head-on) Au+Au collisions at $\sNN= 200 $GeV in the very forward rapidity region at the STAR detector. Upper limits at a level of a few $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-7}$ per central Au+Au collision are set for strangelets with mass ${}^{>}_{\sim}30$ GeV/$c^{2}$.

So where do we stand with the fate of our planet?

See:

Strangelets Do Not Exist?