In August 2022, a paper studying the way dinosaurs extinction appeared in the journal Science Advances. A team of scholars such as the University of Arizona and the University of Texas in the United States discovered a huge crater on the seabed of the West African coast. The crater and the Xikthulub asteroid that hit the earth and caused the extinction of dinosaurs belong to the same period.
This means that the unlucky dinosaur may have suffered more than one accidental attack from space.
Dinosaur extinction paper published in "Scientific Advances"
In fact, in addition to asteroid impacts, life on Earth may also face many fatal events from space, namely gamma-ray burst , supernova explosion , random collision and sun aging , which all have the potential to destroy humans on Earth.
Next, let’s talk about these 5 fatal events from space. What are the horrors?
Space is full of dangerous things
fatal events from space
In the order mentioned above, let’s first talk about the more familiar asteroid impact .
You should know that in the solar system, in addition to the eight major planets of and some larger dwarf galaxies of , there are also some free asteroids, which are numerous. Although it is not too big, after rushing to Earth at an extremely high speed, it will still have a terrifying impact on the Earth.
data shows that according to NASA, there are about 750,000 asteroids visible in the solar system, of which about 27,000 have been determined to be in orbit close to the earth. About 10,000 of them are large and can cause large-scale damage to the earth.
The number of asteroids discovered by people is increasing and more
Because the asteroid is not big and has a particularly fast flight speed, it is sometimes difficult to monitor.
For example, in late July 2019, an asteroid rushed towards with an earth diameter of of about 57 meters to 130 meters. Its flight speed reached 24.5 kilometers/second . Fortunately, it finally passed by the earth, otherwise it would not know how terrifying the impact it would have.
After the asteroid hits the earth, a huge explosion will occur first, with its power equivalent to 10 billion tons of explosives exploded at the same time. In this case, the area near the explosion will be razed to the ground.
Asteroids will cause terrifying disasters after impacting the earth
, and this is just an appetizer. The impact of the explosion will also trigger terrifying disasters such as tsunami, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes , etc. The dust raised can make the earth's interior directly fall into "darkness" and it will not be able to relieve it for a long time.
In this case, it is normal for humans to be eliminated.
The second fatal event is gamma ray explosion , which is also a very common explosion phenomenon in the universe.
gamma ray itself is a type of electromagnetic wave . Its photon has very strong energy, and therefore has a very terrifying radiation penetration ability, which can cause terrifying damage to cell tissue of organisms.
The energy terrifying gamma ray burst
The gamma ray burst will not come particularly "gentle" but will release a large amount of energy in a short period of time.
According to calculations, if a gamma ray explosion occurs at a location 30,000 light years away from us, then this radiation will directly "spray" the earth's ozone layer , and exposes humans to cosmic radiation, which will affect longer than an asteroid impact.
The third fatal event is the supernova explosion .
Anyone who is familiar with it knows that supernova explosions will bring a large amount of metal or heavy metal substances to many parts of the universe. Is this beneficial?
Supernova explosion will throw a large amount of matter into the universe
This accumulation is indeed beneficial to us, but if there is an supernova too close to the earth and explodes, the result is something that humans cannot bear.
Because supernova explosions will not only release a large amount of matter, but will also produce gamma rays, X-rays , etc. These high-energy cosmic rays will have a terrifying impact on the fragile body of humans.
If a supernova erupts near the solar system, the bombardment of the earth will be about 37,000 times that of under normal circumstances. At that time, the bodies of most organisms on the earth will be destroyed by radiation, and the earth's environment will also be severely polluted, which will take a long time to recover again.
After the explosion of a supernova, a large number of high-energy cosmic rays will be generated. The fourth event is also related to collision, but it refers to the collision between Earth and some other larger celestial bodies. Although the probability of such an event is very small, it may also occur.
After all, people are in trouble and can get stuck in their teeth when drinking cold water. Even if the earth does not collide with other celestial bodies, it is difficult to guarantee whether the sun will have a car accident within Milky Way . It will not only hit other stars, but also may hit a black hole.
The position of the solar system in the Milky Way
Of course, scientists pay more attention to when the earth moves with the solar system as it moves, it will meet the dense molecular clouds in the spiral arms of Milky Way . These molecular clouds are synthesized by molecules in interstellar dust, and the maximum radius can reach more than 30 light years.
Once the earth meets these molecular clouds, it may cause the earth's interior to fall into darkness. Because they will fill the earth's atmosphere with dense dust and make the sunlight unable to penetrate. At that time, humans who are covered by clouds will soon become extinct.
Many people believe that several "snowball" incidents in the history of the development of the earth in have been involved in the participation of molecular clouds.
Dense molecular cloud in the spiral arm of the Galaxy
Finally, The changes of the sun .
As the main source of earth's energy, the changes of the sun are closely related to all earth's life. But it will not maintain the current main sequence star state forever. It will age in about 5 billion years, and then the sun will begin to "expand" and continue to extend outward.
At that time, the earth will no longer be in the habitable zone, and it is very likely to be directly swallowed by the expanding sun. If humans had not moved by then, they would have to be burned to ashes by the sun just like the earth.
It is not difficult to see that although the probability of these fatal events from space is not high, any of them can bring disaster to mankind.
The evolutionary law of stars is destined to aging
So, what can we do?
What can humans do?
Compared with the above space accidents, although humans are particularly small, they can still make some "resistance", and the effectiveness of this resistance depends on the degree of our technological development.
Take asteroid impact as an example. Since sensing that they will pose many threats to the earth, scientists have begun to to improve the asteroid monitoring system near the earth. can handle asteroid motion in many ways while ensuring that it can be monitored as early as possible.
Establish a monitoring system to detect asteroids close to the earth in a timely manner. For example, direct impact was made. Previously, NASA stated that it would launch an satellite called darts, and its mission is to impact the asteroid, thus playing the role of forcibly changing the direction of the asteroid.
Although judging from the technology that people currently master, the force of this impact is very weak, but it is useful if it can deviate asteroid a little. In addition to this method, there are also violent strikes, gravity-induced , etc.
People have come up with multiple ways to solve asteroids
As for other unexpected events, we can only expect the rapid development of human technology, so that we can further arm the earth, or escape the earth and go to other places to live before the disaster occurs.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the "natural threats" in space mentioned above, human beings are currently facing a huge threat, and the initiator is human beings themselves.
space garbage in low-Earth orbit
As more and more detectors are launched by humans, a large amount of artificial garbage is left in space. They are flying in low-Earth orbit at extremely high speeds. If the density becomes larger and larger, it will threaten the launch of human aircraft in the future and the operation of space station .
Space garbage near the earth has become more and more
Because according to scientists' calculations, , a 1.3mm shot put , can easily fly at a speed of about 10 kilometers per second after becoming space garbage. In this case, its impact power will be greatly improved, equivalent to the power of the shells fired by the machine gun of the
in this way, it can be seen that before humans are worried about the threat of natural disasters in the universe, they may also have to think about the garbage they have left behind and how to properly deal with it.
How to solve space garbage is very important
