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As observed by many researches our sun will be exhausted in the distant future. So does anyone think that driving our planet (or any planet) closer to the sun for more light and heat is a solution for life to survive on earth? Or would moving it out of the sun's gravitational field and taking it to some other solar system with a healthy star be better, possibly with some kind of thrusting mechanism that we may invent in future?

I am aware of the sun's gravity and the mass of the earth.

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    $\begingroup$ First the Sun will actually keep getting hotter and expand, so we still would need to move the Earth, but outwards. $\endgroup$
    – LocalFluff
    Jul 18, 2014 at 8:58
  • $\begingroup$ Ohh, so the question was not that much foolish. :) $\endgroup$
    – Xmindz
    Jul 24, 2014 at 11:51
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    $\begingroup$ It is necessary for long term existence of life on Earth. And it is difficult for advanced life to leave Earth, we are adapted to its atmosphere, minerals and biosphere which are complicated to recreate. It might be easier to move the Earth than to build a mini-copy of its environment. $\endgroup$
    – LocalFluff
    Jul 24, 2014 at 13:19

2 Answers 2

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Yes. Even with todays technology we can get started. In this article by Korycansky et al 2001 it is suggested to use rockets to move an asteroid (like a larger version of the NASA ARM Asteroid Redirect Mission) to a cycling orbit between Earth and Jupiter. The asteroid would pass near infront of the Earth in order to give the Earth a slight gravity assist which moves it outwards. The asteroid then passes near behind Jupiter to itself get a gravity assist. This transfers energy from Jupiter's to Earth's orbit. I've also heard of a proposal to use Venus instead.

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  • $\begingroup$ The paper says: "Our initial analysis shows that the general problem of long-term planetary engineering is almost alarmingly feasible using technologies that are currently under serious discussion. The eventual implementation of such a program, which is moderately beyond current technical capabilities, would profoundly extend the time over which our biosphere remains viable." This conflicts with you saying that we could get this started with today's technology. We could start planning it maybe. You could stand to clarify this a little. $\endgroup$
    – called2voyage ♦
    Apr 6, 2016 at 15:43
  • $\begingroup$ It will only take one slight miscalculation and the asteroid will ram into Earth, successfully ending the silly mission of a deluded race of organisms to move their planet outside. Another type of miscalculation would have the asteroid fall into Jupiter or one of its moons. Or our moon could come collide into Earth. Or our moon could detach from us forever and get shot outwards, or into the sun. Silly little wishful humans ... $\endgroup$
    – Youstay Igo
    Jun 21, 2016 at 6:10
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yes it is possible by very few different ways.

https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/flipaxis.htm

Nothing acting solely from on or within the Earth could change its orbit or seriously alter its rotation. One way to move an object is to throw mass in the opposite direction, the way jets or rockets do. If we think really big and imagine blasting a chunk out of the Earth as big as North America and 100 miles thick so that its final speed, after escape, with respect to the Earth is 25,000 miles an hour, we will have expelled only 1/500 of the total mass of the Earth. The Earth would move in the opposite direction 1/500 as fast or 50 miles an hour. The speed of the Earth in its orbit is about 67,000 miles an hour. We will not change the orbit of the Earth very much--if we apply the impulse to speed up the earth in its orbit we would put the Earth into a new orbit with its most distant point about 70,000 miles further from the Sun than now--and the Earth's distance from the Sun varies now by three million miles over the course of a year! Exactly the same arguments apply to changing the orbit of the Earth through the impact of a large asteroid. The largest asteroid, Ceres, about 600 miles in diameter, is only about as massive as our hypothetical chunk of Earth above. Changing the orbit of a planet is a tall order. An impact big enough to have even a tiny effect on the Earth's orbit or rotation would almost certainly destroy all life on Earth as well.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/science/astro/2001-02-15-orbit.htm

hope this two links provides enough satisfactory explanation to you. if not do say so i will make further search to clear you the answer.

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