Belair
03-25-2005, 07:07 AM
Just received this in an email,and thought I'd post it here to share with you all.
How might the world end
End of the sun as we know it: Scientists are quite confident that, life on earth cannot last much more than another five billion years. At about that time, the sun will become unstable. It will expand into a red giant, and engulf the Earth. However, none of this will happen in our near future.
A massive asteroid could theoretically hit the earth at any time. Such collisions seem to happen at irregular intervals, many tens of millions of years apart. When they occur, many species of life forms -- plant and animal -- are wiped out on earth. When we originally published this essay in the year 2000, we wrote: "A major hit is most unlikely to happen in the next year or two -- if it were, astronomers would probably have detected it by now. But it could happen a decade from now, a millennium in the future, or many tens of millions of years from now. It is just a matter of time!" It turns out that this is wishful thinking. In the year 2002, astronomers detected an asteroid the size of a football field. It passed close to the earth -- about one third of the way between the earth and the moon. The shocking thing is that they only detected the asteroid after it had made its closest approach to the earth and was starting to get further away! If it had been hit the earth, it would have had the power equal to a hydrogen bomb. If it landed in a populated area, it would have obliterated an entire city. We cannot count on any significant advance warning of an asteroid hit, unless better systems are put in place.
Other doomsday scenarios: Many dozens of prophecies have been made which predict the end of the world (or at least a major catastrophe) in our near future, due to:
Massive shifts in the earth's axis.
Melting ice caps.
World-wide floods.
Weather-related natural disasters.
World War III.
Attacks by space aliens.
etc.
However, these types of catastrophes have been predicted many times in the past with a 100% failure rate. It is unlikely that any of them will come true in our near-term future.
How might the world end
End of the sun as we know it: Scientists are quite confident that, life on earth cannot last much more than another five billion years. At about that time, the sun will become unstable. It will expand into a red giant, and engulf the Earth. However, none of this will happen in our near future.
A massive asteroid could theoretically hit the earth at any time. Such collisions seem to happen at irregular intervals, many tens of millions of years apart. When they occur, many species of life forms -- plant and animal -- are wiped out on earth. When we originally published this essay in the year 2000, we wrote: "A major hit is most unlikely to happen in the next year or two -- if it were, astronomers would probably have detected it by now. But it could happen a decade from now, a millennium in the future, or many tens of millions of years from now. It is just a matter of time!" It turns out that this is wishful thinking. In the year 2002, astronomers detected an asteroid the size of a football field. It passed close to the earth -- about one third of the way between the earth and the moon. The shocking thing is that they only detected the asteroid after it had made its closest approach to the earth and was starting to get further away! If it had been hit the earth, it would have had the power equal to a hydrogen bomb. If it landed in a populated area, it would have obliterated an entire city. We cannot count on any significant advance warning of an asteroid hit, unless better systems are put in place.
Other doomsday scenarios: Many dozens of prophecies have been made which predict the end of the world (or at least a major catastrophe) in our near future, due to:
Massive shifts in the earth's axis.
Melting ice caps.
World-wide floods.
Weather-related natural disasters.
World War III.
Attacks by space aliens.
etc.
However, these types of catastrophes have been predicted many times in the past with a 100% failure rate. It is unlikely that any of them will come true in our near-term future.