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by turingbike 2557 days ago
> What if future humans check all the planets in the universe

Nope! Imagine a shell around us, defined as "how far we could go, if we left right now, traveling at near the speed of light, given that the accelerated expansion of the universe keeps making things get further away." It's a large, but finite, sphere. It's actually smaller than the Cosmological Event Horizon [0], which is the cutoff point, beyond which light can never reach us (again, because the accelerated expansion of the universe is effectively putting space between us and the event faster than light can travel) - estimated to be ~ 16 billion light years in radius.

If by "universe" you meant "observable universe" - that's fair, but still no. How long could humans conceivably last before we go extinct, or change into something that can't be called human anymore? I feel like 100,000 years is an absurdly high estimate, but let's got 10x higher.

If we figure out how to travel at c/2 soonish, and we say going somewhere counts as "exploring" (no need to report back to any one), then we have a ~500,000 light year radius sphere to explore. That's ~ 225 billion stars. For the near ones, we can shuttle back and forth, but for the far ones, that's a one way trip. So let's say 100 billion space ships. And that's if we leave tomorrow.

c/2, 100 billion space ships... If we start paring these back to reasonable figures, you start to realize: our species will barely scratch the surface of the observable universe. In 1,000,000 years, I think, best case, we can cover a 50,000 light year radius sphere. That's 0.000000000000003% of the observable universe.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_horizon

2 comments

> That's 0.000000000000003% of the observable universe.

Also coincidentally the percentage of equity most startups grant engineers.

But they get to breath co2 deprived air. Young people are just always complaining.
What if we sent self replicating drones going at that speed? They would gather the material they need to replicate on the way and ensure that the coverage stays the same even as they drift further a way from earth. Universe would still be as big and far away though ;)