• Question: is this world going to end

    Asked by livnki to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by converse1dgirl2000, littlegirl16emily, twilightgibbo, funkymonkey, cartridge98, cerys, fishofdoom, katnisseverdeen, howbenek1, robertairdrie9924, nazia1999, jess4coop, howyilms1, immyt, ejrw, cheeseballs, olliep, mawmanjr01, jamjam8901.
    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Even though lots of people talk about the world ending at the end of 2012, there is no scientific reason to think this is true.

      The Earth will keep on going for a few more billion years, but when our sun gets older, it will expand into a Red Giant, and double its size. Unfortunately the earth will then be *inside* the sun, so anything living on it would be burnt up to a crisp. People will probably have left Earth by then to travel the stars, so although Earth is gone, we don’t necessarily all have to die out.

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Yes.

      At some point, it will be impossible to live on Earth. It may be for any number of reasons, like an asteroid hitting us, or eventually the sun eating us (in about 7 billion years), but none of these things are going to happen soon.

      We’re a very adaptable species so could probably deal with a lot of things that could happen to the Earth, plus we can go and colonise other planets (eventually).

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Definitely – probably in about 5 billion years when the Sun runs out of fuel. Definitely not in 2012.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Yes, but I suppose it depends on what you mean. The sun will swallow up the Earth when it expands in about 4.5 billion years, but the Earth is already about 4.5 billion years old so that will take quite a while.

      Climate change will be very unlikely to kill all human beings, but a large asteroid strike might be quite nasty. It may not kill everybody though, it is important to remember that the asteroid that hit the Earth 65 million years ago didn’t kill all the dinosaurs at once, they just didn’t survive for long afterwards.

      Is there going to be some nasty virus that kill everyone? Again, no, many people will survive for lots of reasons. (Including, a really nasty illness kills people “too quickly” so it can’t spread.) Will we run out of food or water? Unfortunately, for some poor people the answer might be yes, but most wealthy people (like in Europe or the United States) will be okay.

      As for the prediction that the world ends in 2012, the Mayans said their calendar ends in 2012 and they then thought that means the world must start all over again. But it might just instead mean you need to buy a new calendar.

      Overall: don’t worry about it.

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