• Question: How do you think the earth will end?

    Asked by anon-198915 to Srinath, Natasha, Nana, Luisa, Gautam, Alex on 13 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Srinath Kasturirangan

      Srinath Kasturirangan answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      How the world will end and how life on earth (specifically human life) will end are 2 separate questions. For the world – read earth – time will tell. The sun will burn itself out and start expanding and swallow all the planets in its wake including earth. But life on earth would have ended LONG before that happens.

    • Photo: Natasha Dowey

      Natasha Dowey answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      The Earth will keep on going for a long time, until the Sun eventually dies… perhaps billions of years into the future. But life on Earth? Humans- that’s a different story. Dinosaurs became extinct relatively quickly, we’re not sure why- maybe a meteorite impact (Chixculub, mexico), maybe a large volcanic eruption (Deccan Traps, India)- who knows how we will eventually meet our end. Perhaps it will be manmade- nuclear war for example. Or perhaps climate change will grind us down very slowly over many years. I am hopeful it won’t happen for a very long time yet!

Comments