What if the Earth become uninhabitable?

Ever since humanity discovered that there are other places outside of Earth, we've thought about leaving it. What if We're Going to do just that? But where would we go? Is building a ringworld in space a possibility?

Maybe terraforming Venus is our best option for a sustainable life. If we were to leave Earth and create something like a ringworld. Where would we find the materials to do so? And if we lived on Venus, how different would it be from Earth. But before we blast off, why would we ever want to leave? Well, in this first scenario, Earth would look a little bit different. That's because we're now one of Jupiter's 75 moons. How would Jupiter's super strong gravity affect our lives? What would our sky look like and how dangerous would this new version of Earth be? All those answers in just a little bit. But right now, let's talk about just how big Jupiter is.

This gas giant is so massive that it could hold more than 1300 Earths. To put it in perspective, if Earth was the size of a grape, Jupiter would be the size of a basketball. Currently we have just a single moon. Jupiter has 75. So yeah, Jupiter is a pretty big deal. And while orbiting it might be a dream come true for all. First, getting the perfect picture for Instagram is the least of your worries because every day is a struggle for survival. Being a moon of Jupiter would be pretty terrible. But why?

Well, for one thing, the temperature is ridiculously cold. But don't just take our word for it. If you took Earth and put it around Jupiter now, then of course the sun would be much fainter. There be a lot less energy input in our biosphere from solar radiation and the atmosphere would quickly cool off. Depending on where you are on the planet, the temperature ranges between -145 degrees to -220 degrees. This is because Jupiter is an average of 778 million kilometers from the sun. That means Jupiter only gets 3.7% of the light that Earth gets. So, it's going to be a lot darker in your neighborhood. And the days could be long ones compared to the length of a 24-hour day. Jupiter's closest moon IO nearly doubles Earth with days that are about 40 hours long. Wonder how long the days would be on our Ringworld or on Venus?

Let's not be so fast. We should try to make life circling Jupiter work with temperatures like this. We'd need to find a completely new way to live on earth. What would be the best option for humans to survive these treacherous conditions? Would it be living in heated domes, wearing super insulated spacesuits, or living underground? Think about that and we'll have the answer for you soon. For now, let's talk about some other things you'll have to avoid on our new moon planet. The gravitational pull from Jupiter's other moons as well as the planet itself, would create extreme tidal forces. Tidal forces, of course, are greater if the object that creates the tides is more massive. So, moon creating tides on the earth is the moon is not that massive. So, the tides on earth are very small. But Jupiter creating tides on its moon IO is much, much more massive. These would generate lots of heat on earth, but only internally. For example, Jupiter's external temperature averages -145 degrees, but its core is as hot as parts of the sun. So, inside our planet would be pretty toasty. But that'll be about the only good thing that comes from moving Earth to Jupiter.

In addition to heating the Earth's core, tidal waves would also bring daily earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions to Earth. So, for sufficiently strong tidal forces, you can have arbitrarily strong earthquakes, arbitrarily high tsunamis like kilometers sizes even, which is almost incomprehensible. As if trying to avoid all these hazards isn't enough. There's also the possibility of getting cooked to death. Jupiter's magnetic field is ten times stronger than Earth's meaning that it emits a million times more radiation than what we're used to. If you're as close to Jupiter as EOS, to Jupiter, the radiation you would experience from ions trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field is an order of magnitude more per day than the lethal radiation for a human being. So how can you survive this new, treacherous planet? Well, having a superheated dome and special suits would certainly help. But your best bet for surviving would be to live underground.

This is actually not so different from what's happening on Earth today in certain corners of the world. The rich elite are building underground bunkers to survive a potential apocalypse. Their subterranean safe havens are designed to withstand impending disasters like bombs, pandemics, and maybe even surviving being a moon of Jupiter. But if you were to live underground, how long do you think you could last? How would your mind handle this new living environment? You could dig down towards the earth's core and harness its geothermal energy. That means taking heat from the earth, extracted from hot water and rock creating steam. The steam would then rotate a turbine, activating a generator, and from this you can get power. Luckily for you, producing geothermal energy may be even easier considering you're now near Jupiter. So, the earth's core is hotter than ever before.

Okay, now that you have power, how do you get drinkable water? Since all the water on the planet's surface would be full of radiation? You're going to have to dig below until you find a source of water. Just remember to be careful as digging around in your underground bunker could easily cause flooding or caves. And remember, you'll need to purify your water before you drink it.

Hopefully you stocked up on lots of canned food before bunkering down here. But even that would only last so long if an entire society were living underground. We need to figure out a way to feed all these people. If you wanted to actually have a chance at surviving, you'd have to build hydroponic gardens to grow fruits and vegetables. This would allow you to garden without soil. People use them today to grow herbs, fruits and veggies all year round. They don't take up as much space since you can stack them vertically. Hydroponic gardens also grow faster and more consistently than traditional gardens. And sure, let's bring in some farm animals as well. So, you don't have to go vegan after all. This bunker will be quite massive and they can provide fertilizer for the garden. So, this all sounds pretty good. You've got your home, your food and your water. But living underground will still come with its challenges.

If you happen to stumble upon a cave as you're digging, you might think it's a good thing. But that may not be the case. Living underground, there are thousands of diseases lingering about. One of these diseases comes from ticks. If you get bitten by one of them. You could contract what's known as cave fever. Symptoms involve chills, headaches, stomach pain and fever. Eventually, you'll get better for a while, but the symptoms will come back again. Hopefully you brought your medicine as the only cure for this is lots of medication and vaccines. Now, if you managed to avoid cave fever, there's another thing you could fall victim to, your mind. Without consistent sunlight, you won't get any vitamin D, possibly making you depressed, not to mention irritable. If we don't train all clocks or killing clocks, this alignment is lost. And this is cause of different diseases such as cancer and metabolic diseases. If the Earth were suddenly moved into the orbit of Jupiter, then Jupiter would no longer protect Earth from cometary bombardment. As a much, much smaller planet than Jupiter, it's unlikely Earth could absorb these kinds of impacts. This means Earth, including the underground bunkers you built, would be at risk of getting completely destroyed or at least being significantly chipped away at. So, it's pretty evident that living here would be impossible. But what if we didn't have to live here? What other options are there for humanity?

Imagine humanity lived on a ring with a radius of 150 million kilometers encircling the sun. Or what if we managed to terraform Venus to look like this? If humanity had to leave Earth, where would be the best place for us to go? Would it be a ringworld or living on a terraformed Venus? Stick around and we'll find out what the best option is. But first, what is a ringworld anyway?

A ringworld would be a massive ring around the sun. It would have its own gravity, ecosystem and atmosphere. And as opposed to being cramped underground, it would be much bigger than Earth. 3 million times bigger, to be exact. Big enough for trillions of people to call it home. You would live on the landmass, on the inside of the ring. The outer shell would protect you. And a trillion other people from the hazards of outer space. But how would you build something like that? Well, not so fast. First, we're going to look at another potential home, Venus. In some ways, Venus is quite similar to Earth. At times, it's even referred to as Earth's sister planet. Both planets are roughly the same size, have the same mass, the same gravity, and they're both made of the same material. A central iron core and a rocky mantle. Unfortunately, the comparisons end there. Before we colonize Venus, we need to change a couple of things. The scorching temperatures, the incredibly dense atmosphere and the toxic fumes would be the first things on our list.

I like to think of Venus as its surface is just 50 kilometers too low. Its surface is kind of like this. You can imagine drilling down 50 kilometers down on Earth. It's also would be a hot hellhole. That's kind of what Venus is like. We'd need to put some serious work into Venus before we could call this planet home. But our other option, the Ringworld, wouldn't be a cakewalk either. If we built a structure this massive, what kind of impact would it have on the solar system? Would it remain the same as it is today? Would all other planets get completely destroyed? And would we even be able to build it with our current technology?