Why is 2017 not the end of the world

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Travel My Hometown In L. Travel The last artists crafting a Thai royal treasure. You thought having our oceans boil was bad? How about the prospect of having every atom of atmosphere ejected from our world.

Of everything that ever lived on the surface reduced to charred ash; of the record of everything that living creatures left behind turned into dust.

With enough heat and energy, that's exactly what would happen to any world, with Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, being a prime example.

In another five-to-seven billion years, this is exactly what will happen to Earth, as the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core.

When that occurs, the core will contract, heat up, and begin fusing helium to release even more energy than before. In this state, the Sun turns into a helium-burning red giant, and nothing on Earth can withstand this. As the Sun becomes a true red giant, the Earth itself should not be swallowed or engulfed, but will The Sun will swell to almost a hundred times its current diameter, and will become thousands of times as luminous as it is today.

The Earth will be stripped completely bare, while simultaneously being pushed away from the Sun in its orbit, while the inner worlds, Mercury and Venus, are totally devoured.

The Sun will later die, being reduced to a white dwarf, while the Earth remains just a roasted remnant, floating through space in its orbit around a stellar corpse. Particular configurations over time, or singular gravitational interactions with passing large Swallowed or ejected?

Even though it's been cleared of life, boiled, then charred and evaporated, and finally bombarded with quadrillions of years' worth of cosmic rays, our corpse of a planet will still continue to exist. It will remain intact, orbiting around our central, stellar corpse, until one of the following things happen:. After the Sun becomes a black dwarf, if nothing ejects or collides with the remnants of Earth, The world will most certainly end, and that all four of these ends will come to pass is not mere speculation, but the robust predictions of the pinnacle of our scientific achievements.

The far future of Earth is known; the near-term future is up to us to create. Let's create that with our feet firmly planted in scientific reality, using the best knowledge and most successful theories we have to guide us, to ensure the safety, security, freedom, and prosperity of all humanity. It's the ultimate dream of a scientifically literate society, and the one hope we have of pushing out that first "end" — the extinction of humans — as far into the future as possible.

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Jul 1, , am EDT. Jul 20, , am EDT. Jul 19, , am EDT. Jul 18, , am EDT. Like nuclear winter or an asteroid impact, a gigantic volcanic eruption could spew enough particles into the atmosphere that it would block out the sun, cooling the planet and killing plant life.

NASA scientists are currently very worried about the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park and are testing ways to prevent a possible eruption. Even if we dodge all of the above scenarios, one day, in four or five billion years, our sun will run out of fuel. Life on Earth will likely end long before that though. As the sun dies it will grow hotter and global temperatures will rise to the point that our oceans will evaporate, Aguilar said.

Then the sun will expand into a red giant, engulfing Mercury, Venus and possibly Earth. People derive a sense of meaning from being a part of human history either through their descendants or their contributions.

There is always the hope we could colonize another planet. Aguilar said that when we do look for a new home, it's important to find a planet that is just the right age. Will the world end on Saturday? World ending Saturday? Here are all the times the world was supposed to end, and didn't. Facebook Twitter Email. A dozen ways life on Earth could end. Show Caption. Hide Caption. The world's going to end eventually, but not like this! Many 'doomsday' predictions have surfaced over the years.

Here's a look at four of the most notable ones.