......Whats next.............?

Question

Ok. So if there is no other life out there, and Earth and life on Earth is literally nothing more than a fluke of unusual events, an abnormally large moon and extreme luck in being a perfect distance from the sun...When Earth and everything on it dies out in billions of years time (Or whenever it may be), Does the universe just carry on as if no one ever knew it existed? You know like the saying - If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Its hard to explain my question really, but I suppose i'm asking, What next?

Answer 1

The universe will continue, albeit unobserved by any other life form.  It will keep following the same rules it follows now, just as it did before Earth was habitable and we were alive.

The real question for me is this: is the universe one huge cycle of black holes and galaxy-forming big bangs?  Who knows?  It's fascinating!

Answer 2

you been watching Earth:Power of the planet? as for your question...Earth will dry up and life will die out yes...but not for a good few billion years. And yes the Universe will carry on!?!

Answer 3

We know from experiments that life can survive both being blasted into space by an impact event, and it can survive re-entry and impact if it hits something. Bacteria and viruses are tough, there's no reason they couldn't survive inside a chunk of rock for millions of years.

Earth has been struck repeatedly by impacts big enough to blast chunks of rock into space, and its estimated that the "cloud" of life bearing debris from asteroids/comets hitting Earth is about 30 light years wide now.

So even if Earth and all life on it is somehow destroyed, Earth has already nicely seeded the galaxy  with life, sooner or later one of those chunks will land in a muddy pool or ocean in a lifeless planet similar to Earth, and it will all start up again. Assuming it hasn't already done so.

Answer 4

what was before life showed up here?.... the Universe was doing it's thing... expanding, cooling, coagulating, stars bursting into fusion or going nova, galaxies coming together in great clumps.... what would change because 'we' appeared?.. nada.... what will change when 'we' are gone?... nada.....

I dreamed once of being able to look down on a galaxy.... I could see it turning.... every now and then, a bright spot appeared here or there in the myriads of stars.... I took that to mean that life had appeared there.... each of those bright spots made a few rounds of orbit in the galaxy and then faded out.... so in my mind, at least, life might begin here, shine brightly for a while, fade out and disappear, but then over on the other side of the galaxy, there comes another bright spot... maybe one out on the arms near where we are, maybe one closer in by the bar arms.... there's no way to know, so we can suppose to our heart's content.... it's just that on a scale of such immensity as the Universe, our puny little piece of the cosmos cannot possibly be of much import in the overall scheme of things....  

Answer 5

The Earth will carry on until we are a forgotten memory.

What may come next could be another creature type, that may find some of our artifacts and declare us Gods or fools.

Or perhaps this is all a dream anyway.

Answer 6

To quote Spock "It's life Jim but not as we know it". There must be other conditions out there that have produced sentient beings but not in a way we would recognise.  

Answer 7

I think yes, it will carry on. The universe is expanding and it will keep expanding until all galaxies are spread billions and trillions of light years away from eachother.

Answer 8

Yes bot we are separated by such great distance that is doubtful that we will ever communicate with each other.  

Answer 9

I always ask

Who's   N  E  X  T . . . ? ? ?

Answer 10

the earth is just like a small dust particle when compared to a universe so huge and so filled with many possibilities...the universe is comprised of billions of solar systems..to think that life exist only in earth would be closed minded..especially since we haven't even fully explored our side of the solar system or even our planet. as you know, we humans used to believe that the earth is the center of the solar system, but now we know so much better...just because things are beyond our comprehension, it doesn't mean, they are not possible.

Answer 11

  The universe would be a poor place if there was no one to see it.

  In fact we are the ones that give self awareness to the universe and without us and others like us the universe would be a raging unknowing beast that would just run it's course and eventually go out of existence.