Asteroid Apophis can wipe us off the face of the Universe. It was named to honor the ancient Egyptian god of darkness and destruction. Discovered in 2004 asteroid’s size corresponds a skyscraper and weighs 20 million tons.
Whiz at speeds hundreds of times faster than a bullet, it is not a lower energy than all the nuclear weapons on the planet. Astronomers around know where it goes. According to their calculations, in April 2029 a huge boulder will fly in 34-36 thousands of miles from the Earth’s surface. This is close enough for the satellites in low Earth orbit, so this event is already dangerous. April 13, 2036 Apophis could collide with the Earth, said that date Professor of St. Petersburg State University, Leonid Sokolov. Fortunately, the likelihood that Apophis will fall on us, is extremely small, since the approach to our planet, will it break into pieces.
But the main problem is that in space there is always a block, even larger in size. There are asteroids, reaching a length of 15 kilometers. An asteroid this big crashes into Earth approximately once every hundred million years. It happened 65 million years ago. This disaster probably was the cause of extinction of the dinosaurs. No one knows when the next asteroid will fall. But if it is sufficiently large, it can sterilize the planet - and life will disappear.
The universe is preparing us new surprises. The stars are constantly lit and extinguished. In space, hundreds of billions of stars, and at every moment where something killed some star, a supernova explosion. Supernova in our Galaxy is ignited every 50 years. Such an explosion could destroy the Earth.
One recently discovered supernova is particularly dangerous. It was discovered in 1998. Then Satellite recorded strong emission of gamma radiation. The radiation source is located very close to us, at 8 thousand light years from Earth. There burns a star WR 104, located at the end of his career.
When it breaks out in a supernova, it throws two tightly focused beam of radiation, one at each pole. Letting the rays of the star self-destruct. The danger is that the focus of the beam of radiation is the future of Earth. The rays will have more energy than the Sun will produce for the entire period of its existence. This opens the way deadly cosmic rays that can reach the surface of the planet. This cataclysm has occurred 450 million years ago, more than half the creatures disappeared from the face of the earth. Then the strong radiation exposure destroyed the entire ecosystem of the planet.
If we look further into the future, we will understand that all of the danger - it’s just beginning. The solar system will inevitably take place the same way that countless billions of star systems before it, and cease to exist. Now she is in the middle of his career. But every billion years the sun is 6% hotter and brighter, 5 billion years, temperatures will rise to 200 million degrees. The land that time will be molten rock, but her life has long gone.
But that’s not all that prepared for us was shining. When he ran out of fuel, it begins to expand, becoming a so-called red giant. After about 7 billion years it will become 200 times more than now, and will reach 300 million kilometers in diameter. Bloated Sun will eat the world one by one.
