You might enjoy two humbling items on waitbutwhy.com, "The Fermi Paradox", and "Putting Time in Perspective".
I think we are mostly much too complacent about preserving our beautiful planet. Dangerous lunatics insist on killing each other in various hotspots while we should be making sure the forests survive and the seas aren't poisoned by plastic nodules. Even the basic plankton in the Antarctic has been found to have heavily ingested plastic nodules. If the plankton dies it's a good bet the planet dies soon after. The lunatics we can easily survive without.
Bump for good reads about time and the universe. I need something to read on this front. ive Read Hawking` "BHOT" . And Sagan` "Cosmos". I am a total layman...so no deep math necessary. Help me out!
I think terra forming the planets Mars and Venus to make them habitable will be an interesting topic once under way.