We live on a tiny green planet with a single moon, orbiting a yellow star with multiple less than friendly stones nearby, and even less welcoming gaseous balls a bit further, which was named after any mythical deities. Exploring the more remote regions of the cosmos, we desperately attempt to find other star systems that could accommodate an enjoyable life worlds. Appreciating them and realizing how lucky we are to live in our system, we too, can explore other possible crazy scenarios about how different could be our Solar system. Modern Directors note. What…
…if Mars lost its magnetic field
Once Mars was a promising atmosphere, when it was warm, wet and full of carbon dioxide. It disappeared, when the Red planet lost its magnetic field is about 3.6 billion years ago, allowing the Sun to carry out with impunity by the solar wind atmosphere. Space standards, and it happened rather quickly — a big part of the atmosphere disappear in a few hundred million years after shutdown of the magnetic field. Today, the Martian atmosphere is about 1% of the earth’s atmosphere at sea level, and solar winds continue to devour her at a speed of about 100 grams per second.
We know that once this planet had a magnetic field, because on its surface there are still magnetized rocks. Some believe that the magnetic field was lost due to heavy bombardment by asteroids that broke the flow of heat inside Mars that produce a magnetic field. If this happens, Mars has retained its primitive oceans and, perhaps, would be another source of life in our Solar system.
Another theory suggests that the old magnetic field could cover only half of the planet, thereby calling into question its long-term viability. Understanding the composition of the inner core of Mars will help answer this question. On Earth, hot and more around a solid core that holds our protective magnetic field in place, flows of liquid iron. If Mars was only molten core, this could explain the loss.
…if the Earth had no moon
It is believed that about 4.5 billion years ago a planetary embryo the size of Mars (called Theia) crashed into the Ground, throwing it enough substance to form our Moon. Tidal effects of the moon could affect early volcanism and an increase in the number of fallen meteorites that have destroyed early life. However, some believe that life originated in a deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the process, which could positively influence tidal currents.
Quick lunar tides, when the Moon was closer to Earth, could create a small salt sea in which the fragments protosociology acids were associated with low flows and dissolved in strong, ultimately leading to the emergence of DNA. According to paleobiology Bruce Lieberman, “in the end, life could be formed without tides. But genealogy, which has led to the emergence of man, rooted in the tides”.
It is likely that tidal currents helped to transport heat from the equator to the poles, from which it follows that without the moon, the ice ages would have been less serious and reduced the evolutionary pressure on life. If life evolved on Earth without the moon, she probably would have passed through fewer changes over time and came to less diversity. Length of the day also would be different without the moon, which has helped slow Earth’s rotation from six to twenty-four hours, and also stabilized the tilt of the Earth and thus the seasons. Any life developing on a moonless world would have been faced with extremely short days and nights, and probably more severe climatic shifts.
In the absence of the moon, geneforge would lose the moonlight, which helps them to stay active at night, affects nocturnal predators and encourages the development of night vision. The cultural life of any reasonable species would have remained without influence of the moon.
…if the Earth had rings
After the collision with a unstable planet Theia, the Earth briefly got rings, which eventually merged into the moon. This occurred because the fragments were beyond the Roche limit, where the gravitational forces tear apart any nascent natural satellite. If a small moon or a satellite was too close to the gravitational pull of the Earth, he would have broken off with the subsequent formation of the permanent rings.
Saturn has rings of ice, which hardly would hold on long if they are as close to the Sun as we are, but in theory the ring of stone might remain, although different from the rings of Saturn. The effect would be obvious, as the shadow of the rings would have led to cold winters and reduced sunlight in both hemispheres. If in such conditions have formed intelligent life, the ring would prevent the development of ground-based optical astronomy. They are also significantly more complex space missions and the operation of the satellites due to space debris.
Such rings would look different depending on the region of the Earth, from which they watched, the thin line in the sky above Peru, powerful arc in the sky in Guatemala, 180-degree atmospheric watch in Polynesia and the ever-present glow on the horizon in Alaska. One can only guess how the ancient peoples of the world would include these amazing species in their mythology and cosmology.
…if Jupiter was a star
The largest planet in the Solar system, according to some, had become a star, brown dwarf, but she had not enough mass. (Others believe that Jupiter had to be thirteen times more). If Jupiter become a star, he’d be distant and dim, a little brighter Venus. The star didn’t elaborate enough light or heat and would be five times farther from the Earth than the Sun, so (fortunately) would not affect the development of life on Earth.
To turn Jupiter into a star is not so easy, more difficult, than simply to burn the planet. Since Jupiter consists mostly of hydrogen to burn, you have to give him the oxygen volume in half of Jupiter: the result is water. But we need a star, but not a big burner. To start the synthesis of the Sun, you need more hydrogen. It will take another 13 Jupiter for a brown dwarf, 79 — for red dwarf, and 1000 times bigger than Jupiter for a star the size of the Sun.
However, the simulations showed that increasing the size of Jupiter to sun will cause chaos in the Solar system. Satellites of the outer planets will fly from their orbits in different directions, and the asteroid belt will be completely destroyed. Although mercury and Venus will remain almost untouched, the Earth will eventually crash into another planet or will orbit closer to the Sun.
…if the Earth rotated the other way
The most obvious effect of the Earth’s rotation in the opposite direction will have the Sun rising in the West and setting in the East, but that’s not all. According to astrophysics, Penn state University Kevin Luman, “the Earth rotates so because he was so born. When the Sun was a newborn star, and around it was a whole bunch of gas and dust, rotating at a large disc-shaped structure”. The only planet that rotates in the opposite direction, this is Venus, and it happened most likely because of a collision billions of years ago. Repeat this process with the Ground likely to exclude any observers for a long summer.
Even if it happens by the will of magic, or aliens, the consequences will be very serious. Changed completely the Coriolis effect, which determines how the Earth’s rotation is transferred to the behavior of the wind. The trade winds will be facing the other way, which will lead to climate change in many regions. This particularly affects Europe, when the warm winds blowing across the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico, will be replaced by the Siberian cold that blows from the East.
In other places of the Earth rotation change may impact more favorably. North Africa will be an increase in precipitation, and the amount of river water entering the Mediterranean sea, almost turn it into a freshwater lake. The warm air will travel to the Northern part of the Pacific ocean and the South Atlantic, making Alaska, far Eastern Russia and part of Antarctica more attractive for living.
…if we switched places with Mars
If you swap the Earth and Mars, the effects will be very interesting: the Martian temperature will rise, the polar ice caps melted, the soil would be released as gases and the climate will become almost as warm as now on Earth. Earth, on the other hand, will be much colder. More problems will lead to the destabilization of the inner Solar system due to the effect that the orbits of the planets have on each other.
Physics planetology Renu Malhotra from University of Arizona have conducted simulations, which showed a serious destabilization of planetary orbits. She tried to ignore the results of mercury, but it has led to the fact that Mars will be ejected from the Solar system. Another simulation showed that Earth and Mars will acquire unstable orbits due to the influence of Jupiter. This suggests that the orbital situation of the inner Solar system rather unstable, which calls into question the proposals made by some futurists to move Mars closer to the Sun.
Remarkably, if such orbital mechanics worked, the Earth would well have exchanged places with Venus. The study showed that the Earth or terrestrial planet could be potentially habitable in orbit of Venus, the position of which is usually estimated to be somewhat closer to the Sun than you need for life. Despite the double radiation of the Sun, cloud cover kept the surface temperature within acceptable.
…if we lived in the centre or on the edge of the galaxy
It seems we live in a pretty boring sector of the milky Way, away from the hustle and bustle of the galactic center. If we were in the center of the galaxy, the night sky would be much brighter, with lots of bright (like Venus) stars, because the stars in the nucleus divided several light weeks, not years. The density of stars near the center is 10 million stars per cubic parsec, as compared with 0.2 in our dull segment. Yet there are many supernovae and the supermassive black hole nearby, but what to do, city life — she is.
Meanwhile, if we were closer to the edge of the milky Way, hardly anything would change, if life ever started. Star system on the edge of galaxies have a lower level of steelness, that is have fewer elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The decrease in the level of metal elements means that the gas giants like Jupiter, are slow to gather around the solid cores, there will be less. Since gas giants do not take the blow, solid worlds will be more vulnerable to the impacts of comets. Besides the night sky Land on the edge of the galaxy would be boring and empty.
Life in the suburbs may have positive points. Some believe that living conditions are stacked in a number of key conditions that are observed only in a relatively narrow range, known as the galactic habitable zone. In 2001, Guillermo Gonzalez said that frequent supernovae and high levels of radiation inherent in the galactic center, inhibit the emergence of life. Recent studies suggest that this argument is quite skeptical because of frequent sterilization by the supernova will be balanced by the greater chances of the development of life.
…if the sun was two
In 2011, astronomers observed the first known planet in a binary star system, also known as the planet with a multiple of the orbit, called Kepler-16b. Alan Boss, of the astrophysics Research Institute at Carnegie, asked how the Earth would look like in such circumstances. He said, “Slightly chilly. Although it is closer to their stars than Earth is to its, these stars are not so bright, so the temperature of the planet will have a total of -73 degrees Celsius. If you replaced our Sun with those stars, we would be even colder because we are farther from the Sun than this Tatooine”.
Of course, not all binary systems are the same and some situations are better suited for the development of life. Research presented at the 223rd meeting of the American astronomical society in 2014 showed that some binary star systems may be more conducive for the development of life than a unitary star system. Pairs of stars, the rotation of which was synchronized, will be to reduce solar radiation each other and stellar winds, which often purify of the planet and moon from atmospheres.
Research astrophysicist Paul Mason showed that the stars rotating each other for 10-60 earth days, will have a tidal force that reduces the rotation and decreasing the stellar winds that can potentially expand the range of potentially habitable areas of the system due to the combination of light of two stars instead of one. Mason admitted that having two suns, Venus could maintain their water, and the Earth would be a wetter world.
…if the Sun disappeared
Despite fears of the ancients, the Sun is not going to suddenly die out, and such a scenario is physically impossible, as far as we know. But if that happened, the Earth would not freeze instantly. If we stay in orbit and cooled down a dead stub of the once beloved star, the temperature falls below -17 degrees Celsius for the week and to -73 degrees for the year. Without photosynthesis the plant life will quickly fade, as the rest of the life as a freezing of the oceans.
Upper layers of ice insulate the deep water and prevent freezing of the oceans for hundreds of thousands of years, so some ocean and geothermal forms of life can survive. Creepy, but the trees will stand for another few decades, thanks to slow metabolism and accumulation of sugar. The best places for human survival will become a nuclear submarine or perhaps dwellings built in countries such as Iceland, rich in geothermal energy.
If you don’t count death from the cold, some of the advantages of living in the world without the Sun. Reduced risk of solar flares, improved satellite and conditions for astronomers.
But generally, of course, it would have been better with the Sun. Even if we remove the Sun, just for a second, without gravity the Sun all objects in the Solar system instead of circular orbits will go in a straight line. A second later, when the Sun comes back, everything from gas giants and ending with Stardust, will be in new orbits, some of which will be unstable. Also for a second disappears the heliosphere protects the Solar system from extrasolar radiation. Second the shields are allowed to penetrate the nasty radiation from the outside, which will lead to the appearance of polar auroras around the world, will disrupt satellites and power grids or possibly sterilize the Ground.
…if the Land will meet the black hole
Almost every curious child in this Universe ever thought about the effects that could have a black hole on Earth, or at least the people living here. Frank Hale of Stanford University suggested that could happen if a black hole the size of a coin, which will have approximately the same mass as the Earth, was at the center of the planet. Not that the Earth was sucked into a space vacuum, but a stir all the same.
The matter falling into a black hole, will become extremely hot, resulting in the radiation pressure will push the outer layers of substance and cause a spectacular explosion that was fired from the Ground as superheated plasma. Conservation of momentum ensures that the mass of the Earth will revolve faster around the black hole and create the accretion disk that will limit the speed with which will be absorbed by the earth’s mass. The earth will turn into a quickly rotating the ruins, but it will take some time before it will eat.
A black hole smaller impact not so bad. It is believed that the universe is replete with primary black holes with a mass equivalent to a small mountain. These black holes hide inside gas giants and give birth to a premature supernova. If such black hole will crash into the Earth at high speed, she can just fly through. Such a collision will lead to the release of energy equivalent to the explosion of tons of TNT, but will stretch across the length of the path, so hardly anyone will notice. However, the passage of such a black hole through the Earth will leave behind “a long tube of heavily radiation damaged material which will stay recognizable for geological time.”
Everything would be darker, if the Solar system collided with the supermassive black hole with a mass a million times greater than the mass of the Sun, perhaps ejected by the gravity of the two colliding galaxies. Astronomer Christopher Springob believes that we might have suspected something was wrong when the black hole would fit on a 1000 light years to the Solar system. After that, we would be left only a few thousand years to prepare for her arrival, after which the black hole will significantly disrupt the orbits of the planets and eat the star system. When the black hole will be within light years, its gravity will rip the world to pieces, so that the Land will be chewed well before the final ingestion.
Or not. Samir Mathur of Ohio state University believes that he has mathematical proof that we may not even notice that we were eating black hole. But more on that another time.