Starry sky on a warm summer night entertaining show. We used to think about space as something unknown and at the same time attractive, even inviting. In space, our planet would be saved, we will find friendly aliens and learn about the natural wonders, which you could only dream of. And yet at the twinkling lights hiding a dangerous phenomenon that we as a species would not like to death. From burning balls of gas to strong bursts of deadly radiation, from space there are many ways to destroy our civilization. The selections Listverse.
Asteroid
Every day the Earth throws dust and rocks falling from space. Fortunately for us, most of them burn up in the atmosphere. Unfortunately for the dinosaurs, every few million years on the planet is dropping an asteroid the size of a small town.
66 million years ago a 10 km asteroid fell to Earth and created a 177-kilometer crater that was made a mess in our climate. He destroyed the species that roamed the Earth more than 170 million years.
Although the asteroid is unlikely to destroy the planet, NASA scientists believe that something longer than 2 miles can significantly affect the life of civilization.
Take, for example, 4179 Toutatis. This is 5.4-kilometer asteroid often flies past several planets, including Earth. Although the probability of collision with him a tiny, chaotic orbit of the asteroid makes the flight path impossible to predict. Following a close encounter with Earth will take place in 2069 year, so let’s hope that the Coordination control of the planetary defense NASA will work.
The gamma-ray burst
As the name implies, gamma-ray bursts are powerful bursts of lethal gamma radiation. We are not sure about their origin, but believe that they are born in the process of collision of neutron stars or black holes.
Usually, the star’s energy is emitted in different forms. During the collision of neutron stars are formed two magnetic fields. These fields are spewing enormous amounts of energy in the focused beams of gamma radiation. The release is so powerful that his light half of the Universe from us can be seen from the Ground.
How deadly gamma-ray bursts?
It depends on how far you are from them and are in the line of fire. Most gamma-ray bursts be safe by the time reach us. But scientists believe that once in five million years can happen, gamma ray burst, which is powerful enough to harm Earth. He can put an end to the ozone layer and life on the planet.
Solar storm
Imagine that tomorrow you Wake up and there is no electricity. And there is no way to bring him back. All of the network blown up and burned down, and their recovery will take days, months or even years. Although this scenario seems unlikely, it is possible.
Solar storm is an eruption on the Sun’s surface. It usually has no effect on the Ground. But sometimes the released magnetic energy is powerful enough to overcome all the distance from the magnetic field of the Sun to our. In this coronal mass ejection, strange events occur, most electric swings and blackouts. In 1859 a powerful solar storm the Carrington hit the wire and hit the telephone operators, and even the Telegraph paper caught fire.
The damage was small, but the physicist Patricia Reiff believes that today the same storm would have caused much more serious consequences, because the infrastructure of modernity is strongly tied to electricity. Whole continents could take in the dark.
The collision of galaxies
Not everything in this list is guaranteed to happen, but this paragraph – exactly. The Andromeda galaxy is hurtling through space at a speed of 110 kilometers per second. In four billion years it will collide with our own Milky Way, leaving a trail of gas and Stardust.
Some stars will be destroyed in a frontal collision. Others will be thrown out of their galaxies at all. The merger of galaxies will destroy them and will again pull together, resulting in the center formed a new giant supermassive black hole is born of a completely new galaxy.
The shift of the magnetic fields
The molten core of the Earth produces a magnetic field is known to all. This process plays an important role in navigation kinds and protects us from harmful radiation from the Sun.
Every 200 000-300 000 years pole shift and magnetic field changes. The North pole becomes the South. And since the last pole shift occurred 800 000 years ago, we stand on the threshold of the new.
Unfortunately for us, this shift will not be instantaneous. It will happen extremely slowly, and upon completing it will take 10,000 years. During this time, the magnetic field will move across the planet, creating a small magnetic field across the Earth and weakening the overall strength of a large field.
As a result, may adversely affect our DNA. If the magnetic field will disappear for good, the destruction will be catastrophic.
Alien invasion
What we have on aliens? Space ships in the Baltic sea, personal abductions by aliens, and the statements of the former defense Minister of Canada Paul Hellyer that among us there are at least four species of aliens.
The debate about the existence does not cease from its very beginning. However, given the fact that most suns have at hand the planetary system, they are combined in the galaxy and in the Universe of 200 billion galaxies, it would be strange to believe that no one but us there.
Some of the best scientists in the world, including Stephen Hawking, say that extraterrestrial life cannot exist. In fact, over the past five years we ourselves have tried very hard to contact. But Hawking warned of the dangers of sending message to those whose intentions are completely unknown to us. “Civilization, which will get our message, can be billions of years ahead and more powerful. They can see in us more good than we see in bacteria”.
If history taught us, it’s that less developed species are losing the war.
The Expansion Of The Sun
At the center of our Solar system is extremely small star. It is quite close to us, so that our oceans do not freeze, but far enough not to turn them in the desert and not boil.
Interestingly, this star is an ordinary yellow dwarf in the main phase of your life. During this stable phase, the hydrogen atoms in its core fuse into helium atoms and produces solar radiation, which warms and illuminates our planet.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Being the age of 4.5 billion years, our Sun has already burned half of its hydrogen. When the fuel runs out, the core of the star shrinks and the outer layers are retracted under the action of powerful gravitational forces. To remain stable, the core of the sun will raise the temperature and expand the outer layers. Eventually the Sun will become a red giant, the oceans will boil, fry mankind and engulf the Earth.
The Loss Of The Moon
The moon away from Earth 3.8 centimeters every year. Although losing her forever would be difficult, the question arises: what would happen if the Moon disappears?
Imagine this: a giant asteroid, destroyer of planets, hits the Earth and the moon. What happens next?
Obviously, under the gravitational attraction of the Earth, the lunar dust is collected and forms around the Earth-ring (like Saturn). The meteors break these rings constantly showering debris the Earth’s surface and destroying everything in his path.
Loss of gravitational attraction of the moon is also bad for the climate and the weather. The tidal pull of the moon slows the rotation of our planet. Without it, the days will be 10 hours long, and the Earth will move 60 degrees, leading to chaos in the course of our seasons.
Shooting stars
“Falling star” is usually called the glowing gas trail that remains from meteors, burning up in the atmosphere. But the real shooting stars do exist. It’s a giant burning balls of gas that are free to fly through the Universe.
This occurs when the velocity of the star is large enough, so that she could leave the galaxy and go wander around the Universe at speeds in the tens of thousands of kilometers per second.
These giant balls of nuclear energy burned everything in its path and destroy the delicate balance of planetary orbits, near which pass. Fortunately for Earth, we found only about a dozen such ultrafast stars.
The chances that one of them will come to us in this huge Universe, tiny. Of course, this does not prevent it to destroy us if she still dare to look in our Solar system.
Goodbye, hydrogen
The aging of our Universe, the space landscape will change. Like our Sun, most stars in the Universe slowly burns its fuel and will eventually turn into pure carbon.
Large stars will become supernovae, neutron stars or even black holes but they evaporate or are converted to create a small star with the same fate.
As soon as the free hydrogen will be used, there will be no more fuel to create new stars, and the universe will be plunged into complete darkness. And freeze – the temperature drops to absolute zero. In such circumstances life has no chance.
10 ways to destroy mankind from space
Ilya Hel