...and the End of the Universe

PBS has created a short video to discuss the life expectancy of the Earth and the universe itself.  The 5 and a half minute video is called The Far Future of the Universe and is part of PBS digitalstudios' It's okay to Be Smart series.  In the video, host Joe Hanson provides a number of useful mileposts for the future, including:

• In 100,000 years not a single constellation we know today will be recognizable;
• In 600 million years photosynthesis will end for 99 percent of the Earth's plants;
• In 1 billion years the sun will boil away the Earth's oceans and only bacteria will remain (see image above - the Earth looks like Mars);
• In 4 billion years the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Adromena galaxy;
• In 7.9 billion years our Sun will expand to swallow Mercury and Venus; and
• In 110 trillion years all stars throughout the universe will flicker out.

But wait, there's more.  The Earth still may still exist after all of that.  Go to the video to learn more.  It is a fascinating tale.   

A New Cosmos is Coming, But Not on PBS

Like millions of people, I am a fan of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series from 1980.  The program, Cosmos: A Personal Journey, brought a fascinating and understandable form of astronomy into America's living rooms.  The program was viewed by more than 750 million people and won both Emmy and Peabody awards. 

Dr. Sagan put the universe, and our place in it, into a context that continues to fascinate today, particularly the cosmic calendar.  The calendar demonstrated that, if all time was condensed to a year, we humans would have first appeared on December 31st during the remaining 8 minutes of the year, with our written history appearing in the last 13 seconds. Certainly a mind-blowing way to show our place in time.

So is it time for an updated version of Cosmos?  It seems the Fox network and the National Geographic Channel feels it is and it has brought in Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, to renew the role of Dr. Sagan.  The new program, to be broadcast next month, is called Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey. You can view a trailer for the show here.

It is a wise choice in terms of a popular scientist who can make the complex fun.  However, I am more comfortable with PBS, the creator of NOVA and Frontline, taking the helm than Fox, the creator of the Simpsons and Fox News.  In fact, Fox is bringing in the animation skills of Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy.  Does this mean a talking dog will explain the process of searching for exoplanets?  I hope not.

The original Cosmos is one of those television jewels that most likely will never be duplicated, but time moves on (yes, that last second of the year) and new stories need to told.  Let's hope Dr. Tyson can create a whole new generation of fans staring at the stars for answers. 

Update:  The new Cosmos series premieres on Fox and the National Geographic Channel on March 9th.

NOVA: A Story About Exoplanets

Earlier this month PBS's NOVA had an good program on exoplanets called Alien Planets Revealed.  You can still view the show on NOVA's website, and here is a quick summary from that same site:

It’s a golden age for planet hunters: NASA's Kepler mission has identified more than 3,500 potential planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun. Some of them, like a planet called Kepler-22b, might even be able to harbor life. How did we come upon this distant planet? Combining startling animation with input from expert astrophysicists and astrobiologists, “Alien Planets Revealed” takes viewers on a journey along with the Kepler telescope. How does the telescope look for planets? How many of these planets are like our Earth? Will any of these planets be suitable for life as we know it? Bringing the creative power of veteran animators together with the latest discoveries in planet-hunting, “Alien Planets Revealed” shows the successes of the Kepler mission, taking us to planets beyond our solar system and providing a glimpse of creatures we might one day encounter.

Sadly, the Kepler space telescope is no longer searching the heavens after a mechanical failure in May 2103, but the wealth of information that it provided between 2009 and 2013 will keep scientists busy for many years to come.  The NOVA program discusses some of the finding, including Kepler 62F, the first promising earth-like planet to be discovered (see NASA artist concept below).  Kepler 62F is about 1,200 lights years away and the program makes it clear that it would take "many million years" for us to get there with our current spacecraft.  Given NASA cannot get a budget one year out, it is unlikely this Congress will be contemplating such missions (though I still vote we send a CODEL - or congressional delegation - on the mission anyway).  

The NOVA program also discusses how about 75 percent of the stars in the galaxy are red dwarves, which means the nature of life around other suns may be quite different from ours based on the light received on the surface of the exoplanets.  Some of the ideas about flora and fauna on these red dwarf exoplanets was pretty interesting. 

Another discussion point was how our own planet's life was nothing but microbes for billions of years, and therefore this is what we should probably suspect in terms of "life" on these exoplanets if there is life at all.  And the idea that intelligent life would evolve on such exoplanets is not a given.  NOVA uses the shark as an example of non-intelligent life staying pretty much the same over 400 million years.  Hence, life may be abundant in the universe without much or any of it being intelligent or at a stage of intelligence that can communicate with us.

After all of that, the program still leaves us with the point that one out of every six stars in our galaxy has an Earth-sized planet orbiting it, which puts the number of Earth-sized planets at about 17 billion for the Milky Way.  That gives us plenty of exoplanets to explore even with all the caveats above. 

Top Image Credit:  Exoplanet Eclipse/Bill Lile, quoted from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blile59/313907609