End Of The World
The phrase "end of the world "means the time of alleged destruction of the universe , the Earth , or the only humanity. We find this theme in many religions , philosophies and mythologies. It is also a theme widely used in the art and fiction. His study is the eschatology. One can find examples of universality and diversity of this topic in the list of predictions of the end of the world.
Summary |
Mythology and religion
- In the Bible:
- Millenarian Christian
- see Apocalypse | Flood | year of grace | eschatology
- In the Qur'an:
- Al-Qiyamah ( Judgement Day )
- In Buddhism:
- In Norse mythology:
Philosophy
Science
We must distinguish the extinction of humanity from the destruction of the planet.
Extinction of Mankind
It may first result from human activity ( pollution , depletion of natural resources , greenhouse effect ). Global warming is likely to result in a decrease of oxygen in the air by death of plankton and release of hydrogen sulfide lethal to most organisms. The hydrogen sulfide is a likely culprit for the extinction of the Permian , where 95% of marine species and 70% of land species vanished.
Apart from the effects of human activity, any kind is made to disappear under the laws of evolution. The human race is the last branch of Homo , which would indicate a change in "impasse", a sunset in a few hundreds of thousands of years (although the fact that some species are virtually unchanged for millions of years may relativize the thing). See also the argument of the Apocalypse , a probabilistic theory.
Destruction of Earth
Concerning the destruction of the planet, or at least a large part of all life forms, several scenarios are discussed.
Winter Impact
A winter impact could arise from the collision of Earth with a near-Earth asteroid or comet. This disturbing scenario is one of the most serious hypotheses to explain the extinction of dinosaurs and other past extinctions, and the subject of special attention. Human intervention may be possible to avoid it: bomb, laser, solar sail, collision kinetics, conventional propulsion, solar, ionic ... to deflect, accelerate, slow down, or destroy the asteroid dangerous. As a result, some agencies such Spacewatch or Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) scan the sky to identify asteroids that could potentially hit the Earth more or less long term.
The period of such phenomena seems to relatively short astronomical scale from a few hundred thousand years to several hundreds of millions of years by the energy of impact. Many footsteps, many qu'rodes by time, are still visible on the surface.
Reverse Earth's magnetic field
The Earth's magnetic field reversal occurs at irregular intervals but the average is estimated at 250 000 years. This is accompanied by a large cosmic bombardment might cause mass extinction of species.
Cooling of the Earth's core
Cooling of the Earth's core would mean the end of the earth's magnetic field. The end of the magnetic field would leave the solar wind into Earth's atmosphere, land surface bombardment of energetic particles which would increase potentially dangerous. Life forms then present at that time should protect themselves or perish. However, the decrease of the magnetic field should be very gradual, leaving time for evolution to do its work.
The disappearance of the atmosphere to space flight
The Earth is currently losing Stellar Evolution The stellar evolution indicates that the Sun during its "life" on the main sequence , slowly increasing its power at a rate of 1% every 90 to 100 million years. In about 1 billion years, Earth-like climate will no longer be maintained and the earth becomes an oven. Then, water vapor will gradually decomposed by ultraviolet solar hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen will eventually escape into space and oxygen to combine with rocks by high surface temperatures. Earth to experience a similar fate when his "sister planet" Venus. After this slow increase in solar power, the Sun leaves the main sequence and then his power will increase even faster, as its size. It will go through a phase of red giant and its volume will increase significantly. The Sun, which has now lived ~ 4.6 billion years on the 10 (12) billion year life of his life, then blow the residual atmosphere of the Earth (where all life has disappeared for many long). Earth's surface, laid bare, will begin to melt gradually before the red giant that will grow to encompass virtually all the daytime sky. What will the world of what was glowing Earth depend on the friction and tidal effects in the outer atmosphere of the Sun become "red giant". The event processing the Sun red giant is inevitable. Many scenarios of science fiction more or less plausible a move reminiscent of humanity on another celestial body most distant (the other five planets of the solar system, objects transneptunian or a spaceship or a nomad exoplanet ). Another scenario that emigration is brewing supplies of hydrogen from the Sun, which is still far from having exhausted at the time, and so revive him to delay his fate red giant. Such an assumption implicitly assumes that humanity has now reached at least the level of a Type II civilization in the sense of the scale Kardashev , mastering the necessary technology. However, if by then the survival of the human species is not physically impossible, it is so unlikely that it is generally considered to be zero: in fact, humanity has been through hundreds of millions of years since our era, which represents many opportunities for the occurrence of a disaster it is fatal. The Milky Way galaxy is located in our solar system and the Andromeda galaxy could meet before the extinction of the Sun but the consequences are not necessarily catastrophic. The fate of the universe as a whole is it a question still open. The scenarios predict a more consensual uninterrupted expansion, resulting in a dead heat by continuous decrease of the density of matter and radiation. Collision between Andromeda and the Milky Way
End of the Universe
In fiction
References
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