Ways The World Will End

Sure the stock market has been a bit depressing this year, and with the near total economic collapse it’s easy to get a little down. But to put our current problems in perspective, keep in mind the near certainty of mankind’s ultimate doom. Let’s call it the Big Bummer theory. Author Phil Plait sureyed the likely threats in his book Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End . . .. Here is a list that makes all the Mars misson proposals from NASA seem a little less frivolous:

Type of Event — Global Damage — Odds of Fatality

• Asteroid Impact — Local for a small rock, global for a big one — 1 in 700,000
• Solar Flare — Collapse of power grid, potential ozone depletion — Unlikely
• Supernova — Ozone depletion, radiation — 1 in 10,000,000
• Gamma-ray Burst — Ozone depletion, radiation, sets planet on fire — 1 in 14,000,000
• Black Hole — Destruction of Earth — 1 in 1,000,000,000,000
• Alien Attack — Humanity wiped out, space bugs give us runny noses — Unknown
• Death of the Sun — Earth cooked to a crisp — Not in our lifetimes
• Galactic Doom — Ice ages, radiation, eaten by supermassive black hole — Not in our lifetimes
• Death of the Universe — Decay of all matter, collapse of false vacuum — Not in our lifetimes

Sources: Death from the Skies!, Discover magazine