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[–] 207 points 2 weeks ago (14 children)

I mean when you make it as arbitrary as possible. The universe is terminally unstable and will be completely destroyed. Bit of a nonsensical headline without timelines.

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  • [–] 66 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

    FTA:

    The estimated lifespan of the outer solar system has been downgraded from 100 billion years to just a few billion years, according to a study that probed “terminal instability” during the Sun’s death.

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  • [–] 31 points 2 weeks ago

    FTA:

    “Newton’s envisioned instability is real after all,” the team. “He was mistaken only about the perpetrator.”

    The news isn't that the solar system will eventually collapse (the concept of entropy isn't new) but that the mass loss is not predictable and smooth and the impact of the irregular mass loss fucks with their orbit:

    The recently measured white dwarf recoil demands asymmetric mass loss that is most readily attributed to discrete, independently directed ejections that impulsively perturb stellar motion.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

    People are acting like it's not a problem, but if we have just one more downgrade of that magnitude, we'll be in big trouble

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  • [–] 37 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Yeah, at that magnitude loss one more and we'd only have tens of millions of years left.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    does that mean I can quit my job and go on a hedonistic rampage?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    is that going to take longer than 30 years?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 child)

    Nope. One more downgrade like that and the collapse of the solar system will be 88 billion years in the past. It'll collapse before it even formed, and none of this mess will have happened in the first place. Come to think of it, that doesn't sound so bad. Since it precedes the big bang, that might help with damage limitation.

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