2
Will the Sun engulf the Earth before 12 billion years from now.
24
closes 9999
22%
chance

According to wikipedia today "The future of Earth", the Sun will likely engulf Earth in about 7.59 billion years. Let's add about 50% margin of error, wait until that time and resolve the question accordingly.

This is mostly an experiment arround very long term market. This may show if a price can have a meaning (like reflecting scientific consensus) even if it's likely nobody from now will be around to see the outcome.


Close date updated to 9999-12-09 12:59 am

Sort by:
Nikola avatar
Nikolabought Ṁ30 of NO

Some scenarios:
- earth has been disassembled by AGI (resolves NO)
- earth has not been dissasembled by AGI
- because AGI never happened and humanity died (resolves YES, very unlikely)
- because AGI happened and humanity decided to not dissassemble the earth and then let the earth be engulfed (resolves YES, very unlikely)
- because AGI happened and humanity decided to not dissassemble the earth and then didn't let the earth be engulfed (resolves NO)

Zardoru avatar
Zardoruis predicting YES at 42%

@Nikola "AGI" is a likely scenario, however AGI causing singularity, rapture of the nerds and using nanotechnology against the law of thermodynamics is less likely.

jfjurchen avatar
J. F. Jurchenis predicting YES at 39%

Need markets for 11 billion years, 10 billion years, etc, so we can see the shape of the probability distribution

Svenbonne avatar
Svenbonnebought Ṁ200 of YES

My childrens children ^40 will swim in Manacoins!

Nikola avatar
Nikola

How does this resolve if the Earth has been disassembled?

Zardoru avatar
Zardoruis predicting YES at 34%

@Nikola If Earth has been diassembled, it would resolve NO.

If Earth is destroyed (naturally or not) but then more than half of current earth mass form more than half of a new body in hydrostatic equilibrium, then it is engulfed by the sun, it resolves to YES (so we can merge with the moon).

If a black hole eat the Earth, market resolves to NO, even if the mass ratio above is respected, as it is no more in hydrostatic equilibrium.

If a black hole eat the Sun, then the Earth, it resolve to NO.

If someone destroys the Earth or the Sun, or causes the Earth to go into the Sun earlier in the Sun, or sabotages any attempt to save the Earth from the Sun, in order to win some Ṁ, the market resolve to N/A.

StevenK avatar
Stevenbought Ṁ10 of NO

This requires one of:

1. Astronomical scale engineering is mysteriously impossible or mysteriously prohibitively expensive

2. Future civilizations decide that the Sun should engulf the Earth (why?)

3. Civilization collapses permanently from something that leaves the Earth behind (so no AI or planet eating nanobots), and no new civilization evolves (or those that do also collapse permanently), and no aliens reach Earth

These seem pretty unlikely to me. Maybe less importantly, it also requires

4. The models that say the Sun will engulf the Earth are right (Wikipedia says this is the "most probable fate" based on this paper; I don't know how strong that evidence is, but the paper says a planet can survive at 1.15 AU, and earth is at 1 AU, so maybe that means it's not a huge margin of error)

StevenK avatar
Stevenbought Ṁ20 of NO

@StevenK To expand on point 1, moving Earth to Mars's orbit over 1 billion years takes 850 horsepower.

jfjurchen avatar
J. F. Jurchenis predicting YES at 40%

@StevenK Yeah, but good luck finding 850 horses that live that long...

Zardoru avatar
Zardoruis predicting YES at 40%

@StevenK I'm aware that Manifold population has a strong bias in favor of technology will solve everything, but I still manage to get surprised.

  1. "prohibitively expensive" is not a so mysterious option.

  2. Question is why future civilizations would decide to not let the Sun engulf the earth.

  3. This option seems effectively quite likely, even if I don't like it.

  4. My feeling is there is a consensus here, but I'm not in the field.

Overall you give me some doubts. I was expecting a more than 90% value but I would understand a 75%

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting NO at 31%

@Zardoru The Sun outputs 5e23 horsepower. What part is prohibitively expensive?

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting NO at 31%

@Zardoru

Question is why future civilizations would decide to not let the Sun engulf the earth.

I don't know the details, but I expect they'll be doing something with the Sun or with the Earth or both.

IsaacKing avatar
Isaac

@Zardoru

  1. Question is why future civilizations would decide to not let the Sun engulf the earth.

Sentimentality. Why let our home be destroyed?

Zardoru avatar
Zardoruis predicting YES at 34%

@StevenK in the Physic stackoverflow response you link there is this paragraph "So, if you have 1 billion years, and you have an 850 Hp motor that can add energy to the earth's orbit magically with 100% efficiency, and you can keep it running non-stop for 1 billion years, then you can move the earth."

The key world here is "magically". Energy is not enough. You have to apply a force somehow, and the reaction force on another object.

IsaacKing avatar
Isaacbought Ṁ0 of NO

@Zardoru Applying a force to an object is something I think humans know how to do pretty well. No magic required.

Zardoru avatar
Zardoruis predicting YES at 34%

@IsaacKing I asked the question to a friend.

Me:

If we want to move the Earth to avoid it to be engulfed by the Sun in about 9 billion years, how can we do ?

OpenAI chat:

It's not currently possible for us to move the Earth to avoid it being engulfed by the Sun in the distant future. The technology to do this simply doesn't exist, and even if it did, the amount of energy required to move a planet the size of Earth would be staggering.

Me:

We have billions of years to improve our technology.

OpenAI chat:

While it's true that we have a long time before the Earth is threatened by the expanding Sun, it's unlikely that we will be able to develop the technology to move the planet in that time. Even if we were able to develop such technology, it's unclear whether it would be possible to actually implement it on a global scale.

IsaacKing avatar
Isaacis predicting NO at 34%
MartinRandall avatar
Martin Randall

@Zardoru I think a solar sail would be enough?

Zardoru avatar
Zardoru

I will update close date when 10K date bug will be corrected, and so on.

Related markets

Will any human fall into the Sun before 2060?12%
Will Humanity Obstruct the Sun before 2030?16%
Will a massive solar storm occur before 2050?41%
Will a Carrington-like event solar storm hit Earth before 2030?14%
Will stellar lifting be used to extend the Sun's lifespan to more than 15 billion years?44%
Will a major asteroid impact the Earth before the end of 2050?25%
Will the US government confirm the existence of aliens on Earth before the end of 2023?5%
Will any spacecraft visit at least 3 astronomical bodies other than the Earth or Sun before 2040?60%
Will anyone die at least 100,000km from Earth before 2030?18%
Will there be a functional space-based solar power plant before 2045?42%
Will anyone die at least 1000km from Earth before 2030?19%
Will a new interstellar object be observed inside the solar system in 2023 ?52%
Will any anthropogenic object be further from Earth than Voyager 1 before 2060?61%
By the start of 2026, will the number of planets in the Solar System, as per the International Astronomical Union, be exactly 8?88%
By the end of 2040, will there be strong evidence of life (of non-terrestrial origin) in our solar system?26%
Will a human land on any planetary body that is not the Earth, the Moon, or Mars before 2075?50%
By the start of 2026, will any human being (save for the 12 Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon) have walked on the surface of any celestial body other than Earth?11%
Will a significant extra-terrestrial signal be detected by SETI before the end of the 22th century?48%
Will any human spacecraft reach another star system by the end of the 21st century?26%
Will anyone be killed by falling space debris before the end of 2032?5%