What are 7 things that could destroy all life on Earth or the Earth itself?

Question

What are 7 things that could destroy all life on Earth or the Earth itself?

Answer 1

1. War

2. Disease (see overpopulation or carrying capacity)

3. Famine

4. Pollution

5. Asteroid/Comet impact

6. local supernova explosion

7. Our sun "expiring" (which won't happen for a very very long time)

Answer 2

It is extremely difficult to conceive of seven things that could possibly destroy all life on Earth, let alone the Earth itself. An asteroid the size of the moon might be capable of destroying all life on earth, but even that is doubtful, and it definitely would not destroy the Earth itself. Nuclear war would have an impact on the larger lifeforms, but smaller lifeforms would sail through it just fine. Same with plagues. They too would have only limited effects. A black hole could conceivably destroy the Earth, but there aren't any around, and I doubt that one is going to sneak up on us any time soon. An ice age that encased the Earth wouldn't do it. A complete destruction of the Earth's protective ozone layer, wouldn't do it. Global warming on a massive scale, wouldn't do it. Even if Earth flipped on its axis, it wouldn't do it.

About the only thing that could destroy all life on Earth, in the next billion years or so, would be a supernova. That could do it. There are things that could destroy humanity, but to destroy all life on Earth would be extremely difficult.

Answer 3

1.Only a black hole could destroy the earth.  Even a collision with a mars sized planet failed at that job.

2. A nearby supernova could sterilize the planet, but not destroy it

3. A gamma ray burster could do the same

4.  An asteroid impact of sufficient size could destroy ALMOST all life.  extremeophile bacteria would continue to exist even if the entire surface was turned into oceans of magma

5.  A disease could kill most people.  Biologically it would be very difficult to imagine a disease that could kill everyone due to genetic variability.  Perhaps a biowarfare attack using multiple genetically enhanced bacteria or viruses could do the trick.  Still unlikely.  

6. Nuclear War would make the northern hemisphere toast.  But there would be areas in the southern hemisphere that would survive. The wind systems are separate although there is some overlap.   Unless either the US or Russia targeted their weapons in a grid pattern in attempt to destroy all life.  That isn't likely.  Major targets may have ten or twenty or more nuclear weapons tasked to them.  

7.  A major flood basalt eruption would play h**l with the atmosphere and the oceans.  These eruptions are credited with causing all but one of the roughly eight major mass extinction events in the history of earth.  Only the KT was caused by another mechanism, but that was just a coup de grace.  The Deccan Traps eruptions would have killed the dinosaurs just as dead as the Chicxulub asteroid.

8.  A supervolcanic eruption could cause a volcanic winter that would last for centuries and doom almost the entire human race.  Its happened once before: the Toba eruption about 75000 years ago.  

  

Answer 4

1: Impacting comet or asteroid.  It'll be a bad day, even for cockroaches.

2: Supervirus.  One that kills any living cells, regardless of animal or plant species.

3: Close-in Gamma Ray Burst.  A star 10,000 light years away could literally blow life out by removing the atmosphere from the Earth

4: Black Hole.  A wandering black hole, small enough not to be noticed until it's too late, could literally suck the Earth in & destroy it, fast.

5: Solar exhaustion.  When our sun runs out of fuel, it'll swell up and literally consume the Earth.  (Hopefully, that won't be for another 5 billion years or so.)

6: Supernova.  A close-enough large star ready to explode could blast everything around it for 1000 light years.  The Crab Nebula is the result of a supernova blast - 6500 light years away, and was bright enough to be seen in the day sky.

7: Taliban resurgence.  These nuts won't be satisfied until *everyone* and *everything* is dead....  

Answer 5

1. Asteroid. Even a small asteroid... the size of a pillow impacting Earth will cause some major damage. And there are some big asteroids out there.

2. This *will* end up killing everything on Earth, and destroy the Earth itself. In about 5 billion years the sun will swell to the size of a red giant. It will engulf Mercury and Venus, and Earth.

3. This is more like a continuation of 2. If somehow we aren't swallowed up by the sun, the sun will soon burn out after.

4. Natural extinction. 99% of all plants and animals that have ever roamed this Earth have gone extinct... the cycle of life is that everything has to die someday.

5. Severe natural environmental changes. The Earth goes through environmental cycles that heat the planet and cool the planet.

6. Man made environmental changes. This is unlikely, but possible. Global warming will cause extreme weather problems and natural disasters.

7. Extreme plague caused by a super bug. Unlikely, but possible. A mysterious untreatable virus could end up doing som damage to life on Earth. We are talking devastation worse than the black plague which knocked out 35% of Europe.

7 things that WON'T end the world:

1. Nibiru

2. Space aliens

3. Pole shift

4. Technology failing because of the year '3000'

5. Apes taking over the world

6. Government killing us all off

7. Any other crazy theories the 2012 people come up with.

Answer 6

I'll give you 10:

1. Asteroid/comet impact.

2. Nuclear war.

3. Artificial intelligence.

4. Massive epidemic brought on by a genetically engineered pathogen.

5. Extraterrestrial invasion.

6. Environmental catastrophe, pollution causing global warming and then global freezing.

7. Nanotechnology gone out of control.

8. A black hole getting too close to our solar system.

9. A very very large volcanic eruption.

10. A change in the tilt of the Earth's axis.

Another problem right now is overpopulation.

Answer 7

meteor crashing into the ocean and destroying all of humanity with a huge tsunami .

or it could all start with niagra falls . niagra falls is eroding back as we know it and is filling the earth with ts water we may all be suced down into the water .

or the moon could fall out of orbit .

we could move to close to the sun .

or something from area 51 could destroy us .