• Question: will the earth blow up at some piont

    Asked by 643drug42 to Steven, Oli, Jenny, Hannah on 16 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 16 Nov 2016:

      Hi,

      I hope not! But I guess it is possible. Especially with the treat of asteroids. These space rocks travel around the galaxy and orbit the sun just like the planets. If a large asteroid collides with the Earth it could cause an extinction event, like the one that was thought to have wiped out dinosaurs. For example, its been calculated that an asteroid with a 400m radius could cause an explosion with the force of two thousand atomic bombs!

      Scientists have good knowledge of the asteroids that are likely to cause problems for Earth, like NASA who have a programme called ‘NEAT’ that stands for ‘Near Earth Asteroid Tracking’. But you can never know if there are big asteroids far out in deep space that scientists haven’t discovered that could collide with us in the future – it’s a scary thought!

      Hannah

    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 18 Nov 2016:

      Hi 634drug42,

      Not unless humans manage to initiate total nuclear annihilation! The most likely end for planet earth would be that it is slowly consumed by our ever expanding sun. This would happen long after it’s inhospitable for humans, so either we’ll all die first or we’ll escape to another planet!

      Steve

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