world sustain lifespan only because our planet dandle board on a delicate and unfeignedly improbable Libra .
Our atmosphere , proximity to the Lord’s Day , and countless other beautiful coincidences not only permit sprightliness to evolve but also flourish .
And yet , here we are , sit at desks and in chocolate store and walk down the street like our very existence is n’t some kind of sinful miracle .
But all skilful things must come to an end .
One day Earth will be inhospitable to anything resemble life as we know it .
The life on this major planet belike wo n’t until zillion of long time from now . But , depending on the vicissitudes of astrophysics , it could also chance tomorrow or anytime in between .
Here are the many ways scientist consider the Earth could go .
1 ) The Earth ’s moltencore might cool down .
Earth is smother by a protective magnetic shell , called the magnetosphere .
The field is generated by Earth ’s rotation , which swirls a chummy shell of liquid iron and nickel ( the outer effect ) around a self-colored ball of alloy ( the privileged meat ) , creating a jumbo electric dynamo .
The magnetosphere deflect energetic speck that emanate from the sun , change its size and shape as it ’s hit .
Source : National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA )
If the core chill , though , we ’d lose our magnetosphere — and also our aegis from solar wind , which would slowly blast our atmosphere into outer space .
beginning : Live Science , Tech Insider
Mars — once deep with water and a thick standard atmosphere — suffered this same fate one thousand million of old age ago , leading to the apparently exanimate world we know today .
Source : Tech Insider
2 ) The sunlight could start to die and spread out .
The sun , and our position relative to it , is perhaps the most crucial piece of our fragile existence .
But the Sunday is still a wiz . And mavin buy the farm .
Right now , the sun is midway through life , steadily converting atomic number 1 into atomic number 2 through fusion .
That wo n’t last forever , though . Billions of years from now the sun will break away low on H and set off fuse helium .
Source : The Conversation
It ’s a more energetic reaction and will force the sun ’s layers outwards , and possibly commence deplumate the Earth toward the Lord’s Day .
Sources : Cornell , Scientific American
We ’d be incinerated and then vaporized .
germ : Scientific American
That or the sunlight ’s expansion would push the Earth out of orbit . It ’d pass frozen as a rogue satellite , untethered to any star and rove through the nihility .
3 ) We could collide with a rogue satellite . speak of rogue planets , infinite is n’t kind . Planets often get kicked out of their solar organisation during formation .
Source : National Geographic
According to recent model , in fact , rogue planets may outnumber mavin in the Milky Way by 100,000 to one .
One of those rogue planet could swan into the solar organization , put Earth into an extreme and inhospitable celestial orbit , or even give up us out of the solar scheme .
Source : University of Cambridge
Or one could dash into Earth and obliterate it . It would n’t be unprecedented . About 4.5 billion class ago , a small planet break up into a larger satellite in the solar organisation — imprint Earth and its moonshine .
Source : NASA
4 ) Asteroids could barrage the planet . Hollywood loves dying - by - asteroid .
rock-and-roll from space can be pretty destructive — a boastful one probably wipe out the dinosaurs — though it would take a quite a little of asteroids to properly complete the entire planet .
Still , it could happen . Earth was heavily bombard by asteroid for hundreds of one thousand thousand of years after it forge . The shock were so vivid that the oceans boil for a full year . All life was single - celled at that point , and only the most heat energy - tolerant microbes made it . Today ’s tumid lifeforms almost certainly would n’t make it . strain temperatures could hit more than 900 degrees Fahrenheit for several week if we suffered a similar pummeling .
Source : Wired , New Scientist , Science News
5 ) The Earth could lapse too close to a wandering black fix .
inglorious holes might be Hollywood ’s second - favored form of planet destruction . It ’s well-heeled to see why .
They ’re as mysterious as they are frightening . Even the name is ominous .
Source : NPR
We do n’t know much about them , but we do know they ’re so dense that not even Light Within can hightail it beyond a black hole ’s case view .
And scientist think " recoil " black hole are out there wandering through blank space . It ’s not impossible that one could pass through the solar system .
If light ca n’t escape , the Earth definitely wo n’t . There are two melodic theme about what could happen after the point of no return , given a big - enough rogue black hole . ( A smaller one would just spaghettify the major planet . )
Source : KIPAC / Stanford
Beyond the event skyline , molecule might stretch until they ’re rive apart wholly .
Source : Business Insider
Other physicists have theorized we ’d operate right into the ending of the world , or terminate up in an entirely different one .
Even if a reverberate fateful hole lack Earth , it might pass closely enough to cause earthquakes and other devastation , kick us out of the solar system , or spiral us into the sunlight .
reference : AskAMathematician
6 ) The Earth could be obliterated in a gamma ray burst .
European Space Organization via Wikimedia Commons ( mil BY 3.0 )
Gamma ray bursts , or GRBs , are one of the most muscular phenomena in the cosmos .
Source : Universe Today
Most are the result of massive stars collapsing when they die . One short blast can give off more energy than our Sunday will over the course of its lifetime .
That energy has the potential to eradicate the ozone layer , flood the Earth with dangerous ultraviolet light , and spark off rapid global temperature reduction .
Source : International Journal of Astrobiology
In fact , a GRB pointed at Earth might have caused the first mass extinguishing 440 million years ago .
Source : Live Science
fortuitously , David Thompson , deputy project director on the Fermi Gamma - ray Space Telescope , told National Geographic that GRBs are n’t really a big concern .
He tell the magazine the risk of infection was equivalent to " the risk I might confront if I detect a frigid bear in my wardrobe in Bowie , Maryland . "
7 ) The universe could go to pieces in its last " Big Rip . "
This is the thing that could in reality stop the whole universe of discourse , not just the Earth .
The estimation : A inscrutable force out called dark energy is press the universe apart at a faster and faster rate .
If this keeps quicken , as it seems to be doing now , perhaps 22 billion years from now the force-out that keeps atoms together will fail — and all matter in the universe will melt into radiation .
But assuming the " Big Rip " is a misfire , who knows what might happen after a global calamity humans do n’t make it ?
It ’s potential some germ will outlive to reseed life .
But if our destruction is total , we could at least go for some other intelligent spirit survive out there , and can bear its respect .
Kelly Dickerson contributed to this post .
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