- 12 ways the world could end tomorrow
Friday ... end of the world?
THE Apocalypse could be just a day away – and a Sun investigation can now reveal the top 12 end-of-the world scenarios.
The ancient Mayan civilisation’s 5,125-year-old Long Count calendar ends on Friday December 21 – and doom mongers across the world are predicting global oblivion.It is not known exactly how the Doomsday will come about but experts have speculated that a deadly alien invasion, catastrophic meteorite collision and even the Large Hadron Collider – just over the English Channel could destroy the Earth as we know it.
Here Alice Everley explores the 12 chilling ways we could perish.
Are we doomed? ... Chitchen Itza in Yucatan penisula of Mexico, once home to the ancient Mayan civilisations
ASTEROID expert Austen Atkinson says the chances of a serious meteorite strike on Earth are very small but the consequences would be catastrophic. Asteroids near Earth travel at between 20 and 30 kilometres per second, making them both hard to intercept and hard to see. If a 500-metre wide asteroid hits the water, a tsunami several miles in height could wipe out all humanity.
2 FLU PANDEMIC
DEADLY flu pandemics happen irregularly but are very dangerous and destructive. The most serious pandemic in recent history was the ruthless and deadly 1918 Spanish flu. It spread all the way to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands, claiming the lives of as many as 50MILLION people. Scientists believe that the next pandemic is not a matter of if but when.
3 MASS RADIATION EXPLOSION FROM THE SUN
THE sun releases huge amounts of matter and radiation, releasing bursts of solar wind and magnetic fields into space. Those particles cause strong aurorae that we know as Northern Lights in the North Pole and Southern Lights in Antarctica. But intense cosmic rays from a mega-powerful ejection could cause anything from massive long-lasting power outages to fatal exposure to humans by blowing a massive hole in the Ozone layer.
Sun matter ... Northern Lights
MOST religions predict some variation of a Judgement Day. In Christianity it will supposedly happen after the resurrection of the dead and the second coming of Jesus Christ. In Islam, Yawm ad-Din is believed to be God’s final assessment of humanity, going hand-in-hand with annihilation of all creatures, resurrection of the body and the judgement of all. The exact timescale of the predicted apocalypse is unknown.
5 SUPERVOLCANO
A SUPERVOLCANO is capable of producing an eruption of a scale thousands of times larger than a normal volcano. Continental hotspots conceal huge flat-lying invisible supervolcanoes, where a massive magma pool would be growing underground and could explode. The famous active Yellowstone supervolcano in Idaho is 50 miles across and could cause destruction over a 1,000-mile plus radius - causing potential extinction.
Sleeping monster ... supervolcano
SCIENTISTS suggest the Earth had experienced shifts in relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles. If the poles shifted rapidly, it could lead to cataclysmic events, such as devastating floods and tectonic plate shifts associated with earthquakes and volcano eruptions.
7 ALIEN INVASION
EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS invading our planet have been a constant fear over the last century. Believers suggest aliens have been living among us for a long time, infiltrating the world’s population by pretending to be human. On December 21st doom mongers say we could expect anything from an alien invasion - wiping out mankind or extra-terrestrials depleting the planet’s resources and destroying the Earth.
Invasion ... aliens
THE Cold War is over, but the threat is still very real – think North Korea’s long-range rocket launched just this week heightening international tensions and fears the rogue state could be building up to a nuclear capability.
9 ICE AGE
GRADUAL climate change in the shape of global warming is well-known but an abrupt climate change is a distinct possibility, some scientists say. Global warming may reduce the warm winds blowing from the tropics – causing a big imbalance in temperatures within the Northern hemisphere with the environmental consequences unknown and potentially fatal.
Chilling ... Ice Age
SUPER artificial intelligence with the view to a kill could be hiding among us waiting to strike, some conspiracy theorists have suggested. The chances of a big plot attempting to conceal such technological progress from humans are slim. But let’s face it, if they are capable of taking over the world on December 21st, they wouldn’t be reckless enough for us to notice before they’re all set, would they?
11 TIME TRAVEL ERROR
TIME travel geeks believe someone from the future could have ventured into our past and caused a conflict in the time-space continuum. This, they argue, could be how the Mayans got their mysterious calendar in the first place. The Mayan time-traveller could then have zipped back in time and warned the ancients all about the apocalypse.
12 LARGE HADRON COLLIDER (LHC)
SCIENTISTS from 60 countries have been working 250ft underground on the project trying to recreate conditions after the Big Bang 14billion years ago. Some still fear there is a chance the powerful machine could generate mini black holes which could grow and instantly swallow our planet. They even tried to get the European Court of Human Rights to stop the tests.
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