How can the whole human race be completely wiped out? Do you think the sun will turn into a red giant and take up the

Question: How can the whole human race be completely wiped out? Do you think the sun will turn into a red giant and take up the earth? Do you think if the sun comes too close that will we be able to see the red shift alot?
- Keywords:
  end of the world,
  sun
Asked by welcometohell to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 20 Jun 2011.
- Christine Switzer answered on 20 Jun 2011:
  
  I think all of these things are *possible* but not likely for us to see in our lifetimes. The transition to red giant is one that happens late in a star’s life, if at all. Our sun is a long way from that time. We have solar flares from time to time and they can be really disruptive to satellites and the communications grid. Some of the doomsday prophecies link to solar flares. The sun turning into a red giant is a much more dramatic process and scientists theorise we are several billion years from that change: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution
  
  Supposedly, we are entering a quiet period for solar activity, which is good news for our mobile networks and such but some scientists are speculating it is bad news for measuring climate change. Less solar activity could trigger enough global cooling to mask the effects of climate change. I don’t know enough about either solar flares or climate change to know if those links are true, but it is a very interesting thought.
- Zara Gladman answered on 20 Jun 2011:
  
  Hello welcometohell!
  
  A couple of other people have asked similar questions, here: http://ias.im/57.320 and here: http://ias.im/57.458
  
  I agree with Christine – all of your ideas are possible! But I doubt any of us will be around to see it. I hope not anyway!!
  
  Humans could also be wiped out if a big meteor was to hit the earth (like some people think the dinosaurs went!). Hopefully though, humans would be better prepared (and more intelligent!) than the dinos for such an event and able to develop technologies to counter the threat (like Morgan Freeman in “Deep Impact” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLgSKv2P-ow ). 😉 A massive volcanic eruption could also cause widespread devastation.
  
  The scientists in the ecology zone probably know more about living things than physics and space – so it might be worth checking out the other zones for answers from real physicists!
- Edward Codling answered on 20 Jun 2011:
  
  At some point in the future our sun will die and engulf the earth as it turns into a red giant. However, this won’t happen for a while – the sun is thought to be just less than halfway through its life span (so we have as long again as since the Earth first formed before we have to worry – a LONG time!)
  
  However, it seems more likely that we could destroy ourselves with some major war, or through biochemical warfare for example.
  
  What is perhaps more worrying for the Earth’s ecosystems is the effect we are having – scientists are calling the modern era the ‘sixth great extinction’. Humans are having as bad an effect as an asteroid strike or a massive volcanic eruption (of the sort that destroyed the dinosaurs). We are also causing this massive extinction at a more rapid rate than has happened before.
  
  This is headline news today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479
- Nicolas Biber answered on 20 Jun 2011:
  
  Humans have evolved from another species, and they are likely to evolve into another species. It’s all really hard to predict. As Edd said, humans do cause a threat to themselves the way we treat the environment and sadly also each other. A complete wipe-out of humanity would take a global catastrophe though, because humans are the one species that is the most widely spread across the globe, and unlike other species that only live in very specific habitats in very specific locations, they are not so vulnerable to environmental changes.
  Humans will stop existing long before the sun comes a lot closer. If the earth were much closer to the sun’s surface, life would not be possible. Also as Christine said, none of us will live to see any remarkable changes in the sun.

Question: How can the whole human race be completely wiped out? Do you think the sun will turn into a red giant and take up the earth? Do you think if the sun comes too close that will we be able to see the red shift alot?

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