Earthly life will end, just not in 2012 - SCIENCE!

mrk

mrk

mrk

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Life on Earth wiped out every 27 million years - and it's not the fault of Nemesis

FIRST the bad news - scientists are now 99 per cent certain mass extinction events on Earth are as regular as clockwork.

The good news? There's still 16 million years to go until the next one.

That's the finding from scientists from the University of Kansas and the Smithsonian Institute in the US, where they've mapped out all Earth's extinction events from the past 600 million years.

According to what they've seen, life on Earth is wiped out every 27 million years.

It's not going to be global warming that finishes us all off, either.

Unfortunately for our planet, it passes through a shower of comets every 27 million years, and it very rarely escapes unscathed.

Of the last 20 times we made a galactic run for our lives through the comet shower, Earth only escaped with most of its biological organisms intact six times.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/l...is/story-e6frfro0-1225891466185#ixzz0tq5yUBB7
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16 million years to perfect space travel and make home on an extrasolar planet - seems like a good set of numbers for the future then!
 
Well we just have to make sure BP don't move with the rest of our younger, more advanced people :p
 
"Of the last 20 times we made a galactic run for our lives through the comet shower, Earth only escaped with most of its biological organisms intact six times."

Is just over 1 in 4 really that rare? O.o
 
At most it will be 40% of life really, it comes around in cycles and at best did 60% about 500 million years ago.
 
Anim said:
At most it will be 40% of life really, it comes around in cycles and at best did 60% about 500 million years ago.
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Nobody knows how it will affect humans though, millions of years ago Earth's atmosphere was different, the dinosaurs didn't breathe the same quality (lol) of air that we do either and if the next asteroid hit(s) cause too much damage to the atmosphere like the one with the dinosaurs (covering the planet in black clouds) then we're not going to be any better off considering how much more fragile we are to a honking great big T Rex :p

It all depend son what size of asteroid or asteroids hit next time!
 
My friend bet me a tenner that the world will end on the 12/12/12. He only realized some time later that he can't win that bet. :D
 
Khaaan! said:
16 million years to perfect space travel and make home on an extrasolar planet - seems like a good set of numbers for the future then!
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Yeah but this is the mankind we talking about. Probably be saying no need to worry - someone will sort it out at a later date in 15,999,999 years time ;)
 
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