Human civilisation in 1.5 billion years

[ee1978]

I once read a story on the internet, written by a supposed alien abductee, who said that intelligent insectoids will walk on Earth in 1.5 billion years and find no evidence that humans ever existed.

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805067817/?tag=pfamazon01-20

According to Ward (co-author of the 2000 book on the Rare Earth Hypothesis), this planet's biosphere only will last a few hundred million more years.

 

[Simfish]

Well, the sun's luminosity will increase to the point that the oceans will boil away.

BUT - it is not TOO difficult to put up a solar shield even with today's technology.

Still, even if we do that, life may not survive.

Anyways, this paper just came out, and it's not pretty:

http://www.citeulike.org/user/InquilineKea/article/9198117

Cosmic radiation backgrounds are a constraint on life, and their distribution will affect the Galactic Habitable Zone. Life on Earth has developed in the context of these backgrounds, and characterizing event rates will elaborate the important influences. This in turn can be a base for comparison with other potential life-bearing planets. In this review we estimate the intensities and rates of occurrence of many kinds of strong radiation bursts by astrophysical entities ranging from gamma-ray bursts at cosmological distances to the Sun itself. Many of these present potential hazards to the biosphere: on timescales long compared with human history, the probability of an event intense enough to disrupt life on the land surface or in the oceans becomes large. We enumerate the known sources of radiation and characterize their intensities at the Earth and rates or upper limits on these quantities. When possible, we estimate a "lethal interval", our best estimate of how often a major extinction-level event is probable given the current state of knowledge; we base these estimates on computed or expected depletion of stratospheric ozone. In general, moderate level events are dominated by the Sun, but the far more severe infrequent events are probably dominated by gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. We note for the first time that so-called "short-hard" gamma-ray bursts are a substantial threat, comparable in magnitude to supernovae and greater than that of the higher-luminosity long bursts considered in most past work. Given their precursors, short bursts may come with little or no warning.

 

[Discord7]

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?

The scientific solution to your question should be derived empirically. We will just have to wait and see.

 

[Nik_2213]

Given that Earth's plate tectonics will inexorably move any currently 'protected' area into harm's way, normal erosion, glaciation and, ultimately, subduction will eventually wipe the slate clean...

Perhaps the last evidence to go will be the lunar landers, both US and Russian ??

 

[nesp]

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

1.5 billion is a long time, about 1/3 of the Earth's age. It's unlikely that any human ruins would still be recognizable, but outside of the immediate earth, you might consider geosynchronous satellites or lunar remains such as the Apollo lunar buggy, probably covered by layers upon layers of lunar dust. Assuming whatever intelligence remained was able to do planetary surveillance, spacecraft such as Helios might possibly still be in orbit around the sun.

 

[Borek]

Given that Earth's plate tectonics will inexorably move any currently 'protected' area into harm's way, normal erosion, glaciation and, ultimately, subduction will eventually wipe the slate clean...

Perhaps the last evidence to go will be the lunar landers, both US and Russian ??

Between oldest fossils known are these from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunflint_Chert - over 2 billion years.

The oldest known rock from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills is around 3Ga, quite likely there are no fossils older than 2Ga just because there was nothing that could be fossilized.

If tectonics stops in less than 3 Ga from now (and there are reasons to believe it may happen much sooner), some remnants of what's around us should be still left.

 

[AtomicJoe]

They are likely to wonder were all the man made satellites came from

 

[Jobrag]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

They are likely to wonder were all the man made satellites came from

The orbital paths of satellites are not perfectly stable. After 1.5GY they will all either have flown off or burnt up in the atmosphere.

 

[Ophiolite]

Technology involves manipulation of natural materials, thereby creating unique, unnatural chemical combinations. These would leave massive geochemical signatures that any self respecting insectoid geochemist would immediately recognise. Land fill sites, urban remains, nuclear waste, all of these would tell a tale of a civiisation half glimpsed through the mists of time.

 

[WhoWee]

I once read a story on the internet, written by a supposed alien abductee, who said that intelligent insectoids will walk on Earth in 1.5 billion years and find no evidence that humans ever existed.

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

Assuming we don't go extinct now - shouldn't 1.5 Billion years be adequate time to figure out how to survive?

 

[DaveC426913]

Assuming we don't go extinct now - shouldn't 1.5 Billion years be adequate time to figure out how to survive?

Since the premise of the question is "if all humans were to go extrinct right now..." then 1.5 billion years would not be long enough for our lifeless, worm-riddled corpses to figure out how to survive, no.

 

[WhoWee]

Since the premise of the question is "if all humans were to go extrinct right now..." then 1.5 billion years would not be long enough for our lifeless, worm-riddled corpses to figure out how to survive, no.

I imagine the cause of our extinction would be relevant to possible outcomes.

 

[DaveC426913]

I imagine the cause of our extinction would be relevant to possible outcomes.

That is a separate question.

There's a show on TV right now called Life After People that explores the very question the OP is asking. It walks through what happens to the Earth a day, a week, a month, years, and centuries after humans mysteriously vanish without a trace. It's actually a really interesting show. The logjam of rusting laker ships breaking loose and going over Niagara Falls is powerful.

How humans disappear is deliberately not addressed so that the focus on the show is specifically about 'what happens to Earth without us', not about some asteriod, or volcanic eruption, which would muddy the thought experiment.

 

[Evo]

Well, the episode about Queen Elizabeth's corgies tearing Buckingham Palace apart and drinking out of all of the toilets just turned me off to the series. I couldn't take it serious after that.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well, the episode about Queen Elizabeth's corgies tearing Buckingham Palace apart and drinking out of all of the toilets just turned me off to the series. I couldn't take it serious after that.

I remember reading an Asimov novel years ago where some travellers visited a world where the human inhabitants had become extinct some time before. An interesting oversight of the travellers was that the former inhabitants pets now roamed the cities as feral territorial predators.

What I think would be quite interesting is how animals could evolve to live in abandoned human settlements, much like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito" AKA the London Underground Mosquito.

 

[WhoWee]

Well, the episode about Queen Elizabeth's corgies tearing Buckingham Palace apart and drinking out of all of the toilets just turned me off to the series. I couldn't take it serious after that.

I believe that was the last episode we watched as well.

 

[Evo]

I remember reading an Asimov novel years ago where some travellers visited a world where the human inhabitants had become extinct some time before. An interesting oversight of the travellers was that the former inhabitants pets now roamed the cities as feral territorial predators.

What I think would be quite interesting is how animals could evolve to live in abandoned human settlements, much like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito" AKA the London Underground Mosquito.

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever. Maybe I just caught the worst episodes. They could have made an interesting series about how things would eventually break down without upkeep, but they thought they had to make it over the top ridiculous to attract viewers.

I believe that was the last episode we watched as well.

Yeah, I'd rather rub jalapenos in my eyes than watch that series.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever.

don't worry I wasn't disputing that. It sounds foolish, as if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Emmerich" made a documentary.

 

[DaveC426913]

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever. Maybe I just caught the worst episodes. They could have made an interesting series about how things would eventually break down without upkeep, but they thought they had to make it over the top ridiculous to attract viewers.

Yeah, I'm not sure we are talking about the same show.

 

[shashankac655]

Hard to tell. They go at around 15-17 km/s right now, so if nothing happens they will cover around 53 kly (unless I did some mistake, quite possible). That's about half diameter of our Galaxy - but it doesn't mean that will be the distance from Earth, as both Voyagers and Earth orbit galaxy center, so they don't go in straight lines.

what will happen after the voyager 1 goes outside the heliopause? how will the stellar winds affect the spacecraft ?i is it possible to maintain contact with it after it goes outside the heliopause?

 

[Jobrag]

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever. Maybe I just caught the worst episodes. They could have made an interesting series about how things would eventually break down without upkeep, but they thought they had to make it over the top ridiculous to attract viewers.

I'm very confused about this, I saw a single 90 minute show about what would happen if humans disappeared that was really quite good (no toilet drinking Corgis), Did they put out various versions of the same basic idea?

 

[WhoWee]

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever. Maybe I just caught the worst episodes. They could have made an interesting series about how things would eventually break down without upkeep, but they thought they had to make it over the top ridiculous to attract viewers.

I'm very confused about this, I saw a single 90 minute show about what would happen if humans disappeared that was really quite good (no toilet drinking Corgis), Did they put out various versions of the same basic idea?

I don't think the dogs drinking from toilets was the norm - quite unfortunate - other segments were much better and quite thorough.

 

[Devon1123]

Hey PIT2, I had no way of e-mailing you, but I was reading an older post you made about strang radar anomolies or circles appearing on radar...I've seen very similar activity on the doppler here in Delaware several times over the past 12 months. I've also noticed quite a number of chemtrails being sprayed. Not sure if that's related, but I've been researching those circles you saw, and have found quite a number of areas that have them. I don't think they're natural. I've also noticed everytime some huge rain storm is blowing in from the west, the moment it hits northern Delaware, it completely disappears. We've had less than 1 inch in the last 6 months and so far I've calculated 14 storms that have completely evaporated into nothing when they blew through. Very weird. I've never seen anything quite like it.

 

[DaveC426913]

Hey PIT2, I had no way of e-mailing you,

That's what PMs are for.

 

[Devon1123]

I tried that, unless there was something I missed. But couldn't find a way to send a PM. If so, then my mistake.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I tried that, unless there was something I missed. But couldn't find a way to send a PM. If so, then my mistake.

PIT2 is no longer a member of this site and so will be unable to receive messages (note the line going through his/her name) For future reference if you want to PM someone you can either click on their name and select "send private message" or go to their public profile and find the option there.