Science Fiction Book / Story where sun is going to super nova, intelligent races monitor our planet and come to rescue our intelligent life, they find humans already left [s]

[Js]

Science Fiction Book / Story where our sun is going to super nova. Other intelligent races (unknown to us) monitor our planet and come to rescue our intelligent life, they find humans missing. They investigate and realize that humans evolved much faster then they expected, and have already left - all humans are heading away from the sun in space crafts. This was more then 10-15 years ago.

[Kate]

I remember a short story where the aliens arrive to help the earthlings, but we have already left. The aliens take time under the dying sun to do some anthropological work, guessing what we were like based on the artifacts they discovered. One of the critical sources of information (they thought) was a film library that still worked. They watched carefully several reels of Looney Tunes, trying to understand the social mores and level of science this race achieved.

It could have been Asimov -- it sounds like his humor. It could also be Clarke, or even Bradbury.

[oliviasbooks]

Maybe Sundiver by David Brin?

[Peter]

"Rescue Party" by Arthur C. Clarke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_P...

[Ann aka Iftcan]

James White, famous for his Sector General 12 novels had a short story where an alien race (actually a number of alien races, who are joined in a confederacy) come to a planet to rescue the inhabitants because the sun is about to go nova. They are set up to do this when ever needed, but in the case of this particular civilization, one of the FTL ships of this confederacy went through the sun while in FTL and de-stabilized it. But the inhabitants of the world didn't abandon it on their own. Still, thought I'd throw it out there, in case you might like to read it.

[Js]

Thank You so much. The book is Rescue Party.

[Js]

BTW Kate, I remember also the story where aliens are trying to decipher our culture by watching a Disney film.