Saturday 28 January 2012

The Earth's expiry date: how it could end!

a relevant song to listen to while you read - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwxDhdXjgCs


Everyone knows the world will end, it's even been a theme of many popular movies! 

No need to worry about witnessing the end of the world, chances are you won't be around to see it! (Unless you use cryogenic science to freeze yourself).

But in the future, the world will fall victim to some kind of disaster..

Asteroid impact
  • Luckily the dinosaurs took one for the team so we're fine for a while, but astronomers predict that there will be one every 5 millennia. However we should be fine, as the film Armageddon shows that we'll most likely blast it off course!
  • The space is vast. Think of an empty Earth as space (just plain air), now think of a pebble in the air, and the chances of us throwing a smaller pebble at random and it colliding with the first pebble. It's just not going to happen, even if you throw a million pebbles, you probably still won't get anywhere.
  • As far as astronomers are concerned, they're more annoyed about asteroids smashing into their beloved satellites!
The Sun

The Sun is our friend, responsible for all life as we know it, it allows plants to photosynthesise, and it warms the planet up to the optimum temperature, allowing liquid water to form. But after many years, it can turn into a ball of nasty fire which wants to kill us.
  • Fortunately it won't turn into a black hole, it's not big enough
  • When it's about to die, it'll expand and engulf the Earth, but don't worry, by that time we'll have populated space and only the unlucky few left on Earth will have a quick death.
Supervolcanoes

First you have the normal volcanoes, mountains which spew out lava everywhere, but actually they don't really do much, lava is quite slow so you can probably just run away.

But then you have the Supervolcanoes, these are a more badass version of your usual volcano. However lucky for us there's only 7 in the world! 3 of which are in America, (unlucky you Americans).
  • The smoke these produce will be on a scale of millions times normal than a normal volcano
  • The lava coming out will be seemingly endless
  • Luckily for us, these are sleeping and have been for a few million years. 
Aliens

I'm actually being serious here, if you read my posts a few days ago, you'll realise the potential for intelligent life is massive. And chances are if they are as selfish as the human race, they'll want to wipe us out!

However if they are so developed as to come to us rather than us go to them.. It's big trouble for us :(
  • Unfortunately this can happen at any time
  • However there may also be nice aliens, who want to help us!
  • If they do help us, we'll be able to advance as a race and create new technology and end world hunger etc etc.
Black holes

For some reason people are scared the Earth will fall into a black hole. No need to fear! As by the time we know there is a black hole about eat us, we'd already be inside it!

Zombies

You may be thinking I'm getting a bit silly now but zombies can actually happen, a few years ago a fish was discovered which had a poison that could allow the brain to function after death. 

For those of you who have seen 28 days later, viruses have endless possibilities, so some secret underground government lab may be making one at this minute! (Better grab your baseball bat..)

Methane burps

These are massive methane deposits below the ocean which man has failed to harvest.

These can be released by global warming: The Earth warms --> The ocean warms --> Methane released.

Now methane is even worse as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and that's going to make matters worse if it wasn't bad enough!

More greenhouse gases --> Even warmer --> Even more methane!

So it's kind of like a chain reaction..

I hope if you've had a boring Saturday I've spiced it up a bit!


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