• Question: If there was a possibility that the world was going to explode; what would you do, and which planet would you most likely evacuate to?

    Asked by to Aimee, Chris, Dave, Greig, Laurence on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Greig Cowan

      Greig Cowan answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      This is a tough one. I think the chances of the Earth exploding are pretty small so I haven’t given this much thought! I would obviously try to build a space-ship so that I could leave the planet. This is obviously a big job for one person to do, so I would need to use all of my scientist skills to collaborate with people at NASA and Space-X to build this. Maybe the first place to go would be a place on the Moon, where we could have a staging area that would lead to somewhere beyond the solar system.

      We would need to go beyond the solar system since, unfortunately, there are no other human-habitable planets nearby. Travelling outside the solar system is pretty tricky and takes a long time, so we would need to have some really advanced energy source to power the ship and to have some sort of extended hibernation mechanism. Also, how would we grow food?

      Fortunately, many people are already working on these questions, so if we do find out that the Earth is going to explode, then we might just have a chance!

    • Photo: Dave Jones

      Dave Jones answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      Tough one! There aren’t any places in the Solar System that are as nice as Earth, all the other are too hot, too cold, don’t have any oxygen or all of the above. So, I’d probably aim for another star and look for more habitable planets there. This would have the added benefit that we’d be far enough away to enjoy the explosion without worrying about getting hit by flying pieces of Earth!

    • Photo: Aimee Hopper

      Aimee Hopper answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      well, plans are already being made to colonise Mars – the technology is being created and improved for people to get there and teraform the planet, so I think there would be a good choice atm 🙂 Also it’s closest, so “easiest” to get to.

      Otherwise Jupiter, because it is beautiful and it has many moons that could be investigated to harbour us 🙂

    • Photo: Laurence Perreault Levasseur

      Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      I agree with Aimee. Mars would be a very good first destination.
      But if I’m allowed to dream the I’d like to go and live on Enceladus, the 6th biggest Saturn moon. In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft revealed that it has powerful geysers, which means internal heat, and, most importantly, liquid water under it’s ice caps, as well as nutrients and organic molecules!

      But the real reason to go live there is, of course, that the saturn rise would be just amazingly beautiful! 🙂

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