Cosmic Chills: 25 Spooky and Uncanny Facts About Space – Part 2

A 2015 study concluded that the Universe will form over 10 times more planets than what currently exists. Scientists assume that there are currently 40 billion earth-like planets in the habitable zone of their stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone and a lot more such planets will form throughout the life of our universe. This would imply that there is at least a 92 percent chance that we are not the only civilization the universe will ever have.

One strange way to reach the nearest stars was proposed by astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who was the first person to theorize dark matter, supernovas, and neutron stars. He proposed accelerating the sun via a nuclear fusion-powered stellar engine and having it drag all the planets along. He warned that if the US didn't pursue this, the Russians would. According to a recently published paper, a Caplan thruster could use the sun’s own energy to transport our solar system to any desired location.

Our sun will get hotter over time and in about 600 million to 700 million years the conditions on earth won’t allow for photosynthesis. All the oceans will boil away a little while later. The earth will be a dead rock by the time the sun gets within a few billion years of turning into a red giant, at which point the sun will enlarge enough to engulf our planet. Europa might be nice, sunny, and perhaps habitable by then. Given the lead time that humanity has (more than 500 million years) humanity could perhaps engineer the Earth away from the heat (if humanity even survives by that time) or maybe mine the sun to prevent it from becoming a red giant in the first place, followed by moving the sun itself to a more friendly long-term location.

16 Psyche is a large asteroid that is supposed to be worth $10,000 quadrillion. Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, it is over 200 km (120 mi) in diameter. It could contain enough iron and nickel to sustain the world’s metal needs for millions of years. 16 Psyche is scheduled for space exploration, with a spacecraft launch planned in 2022, arrival in 2026, and orbital exploration in 2026–2027

The first known interstellar object detected passing through our Solar System is an asteroid called ʻOumuamua’, which was observed in 2017. It was a rocky, cigar-shaped object tumbling through space. Another interstellar object our solar system may have had a close encounter with happened around 70,000 years ago. A Red Dwarf star named Scholz's Star passed through the Solar System’s Oort cloud (~52,000 AU). It was so close in fact, that it nudged some Comets out of their orbits. It may have been visible to early Humans and Neanderthals.