• Question: will the world end

    Asked by aedgar126 to Arlene, Colin, David, Eugene, Paul on 14 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by jadematthews123, energymonstercarla, naoise, holliedollie.
    • Photo: David McKeown

      David McKeown answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      Not sure how to break this to you, but yes. You got about 5 billion years. You still got time to start paying into your pension. The sun will start to become to the end of it’s life and become much bigger (A “red Giant”) This will mean the earth’s orbit will be within the sun and even factor 50 sun scream won’t save us then.

      Sorry about that. We can always try and find a new planet to call home!

    • Photo: Paul Higgins

      Paul Higgins answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Some day the earth will be uninhabitable, but you can’t be sure when that will happen… If you mean “end” as in, there won’t be any earth left to talk about, then yeah, that probably will not happen until the sun expands and burns it up… But there probably will not be life on earth well before that happens, there could be a super volcano eruption, a major unexpected comet or asteroid impact, an extreme ice age. Then there is nuclear war, biological war, irreversible climate change. But in all those cases there will still probably be some kind of life around. You can find bacteria in almost every place you look- come can even survive being in outer space!
      I think until we solve the global food and water shortages, and achieve world peace (or at least world cooperation), we don’t need to start planning for the end of the world…

    • Photo: Colin Johnston

      Colin Johnston answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Just to add to the answers, life on Earth as we know it will be extinct (due to increased solar radiation) about 1.2 billion years from now. But Earth as a planet may just survive the Sun’s red giant phase and if so could last as long as the Universe.

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