You will die.

When you do, nothing will change.

Time will persist unflinchingly.

Plutonium, conversely, will conquer time itself as we know it.

Because when that nuclear matter finally stabilizes in 7 billion years, mankind will likely be extinct. http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

South Carolina currently houses about 12,000 kilograms of plutonium.

It’s left over from nuclear weapons we amassed during the Cold War, and it’s been here for nearly 20 years.

The process will take years, but it might be headed out. http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

The government’s plan? Bury it.

Where? New Mexico, potentially, if the state will allow it.

If it does, the material will be entombed nearly half a mile below earth until, well, the end of time.

http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

Now, that’s a *big* if.

But no matter where the plutonium winds up, it’ll reside there for an eternity.

Which begs the question: How do you tell people thousands of years in the future to stay away? http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

A special team in the 1990s devised several strategies to warn humans 10,000 years from now about it.

A couple ideas:

https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⚠️" title="Warning sign" aria-label="Emoji: Warning sign"> Foreboding messages
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⚠️" title="Warning sign" aria-label="Emoji: Warning sign"> Ominous drawings
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⚠️" title="Warning sign" aria-label="Emoji: Warning sign"> Literal spikes to keep people out

http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

It’s hard creating a message that will last twice as long as recorded human history.

So they picked several methods.

The current plan? Surrounding the burial site with granite slabs, engraved with warnings in 7 languages and images of faces in horror.

http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

Again, this all takes some time.

New Mexico doesn& #39;t know if it& #39;ll take the plutonium, and SC has sued the government repeatedly to keep from getting stuck with it indefinitely.

But what& #39;s a couple years when we& #39;re talking about millennia? http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...

The debate will likely continue for a while.

But by the time the last remnants of the Cold War are gone, life on earth will have already been extinguished, lost to the dying, expanding sun.

Read the final chapter of #LethalLegacy from @thadmoore: http://bit.ly/2s85yjG ">https://bit.ly/2s85yjG&q...