When our species has become extinct, is there anything that would survive long enough to tell the next intelligent species to arise that we were a technological civilization? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by Crackhappy@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] VampyreOfNazareth@lemm.ee 8 points 8 months ago

A layer of space trash floating around the planet

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 0 points 8 months ago

A lot of that will eventually make its way back down to earth.

Some will still be there, especially in higher orbits, but the majority will eventually see orbital decay.

[-] LanternEverywhere@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

I'd guess that even in the higher orbits the manmade materials will eventually fall down or spin away over the span of a few hundred thousand years. Even if it is currently in a perfect locked orbit, there will be some amount of mass loss over time that will alter the orbit. But I'm no physicist, so i easily could be wrong

[-] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

Idk about mass loss, but space is full of small rocks and dust moving at high speeds. Impacts from those might not make a big difference on the human timescale, but a longer one, it would absolutely cause a shift in orbital momentum.

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024

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