What is the longest lived synthetic isotope? (Perhaps stable?)
Alien historians come across ruins of a world, so ruined that they cannot even tell if the planet formerly supported intelligent life. Perhaps the planet has been destroyed by Death Star, or by supernova. But they cull through the atoms and find a few atoms that cannot be made by stellar processes (is this possible?), thus proving a nuclear capable intelligent civilization once existed here.
Look through the isotope concentrations of matter on earth. Did the supernova nebula from which our system formed harbor intelligent life?
The expected fate of earth is to become engulfed by the sun in the red giant phase. Then what? Will the atoms of the earth fall into the core and become part of the white dwarf, or be expelled by the red giant into a planetary nebula? If the latter, we can build a lasting monument to ourselves by synthesizing special isotopes.
The general idea is almost everything a civilization can make can be destroyed by heat or violence, except elements, which are very difficult to transmute.
No comments :
Post a Comment