A Brief History
On June 14, 2002, an asteroid named 2002 MN passed within 75,000 miles of the Earth. If that does not sound close to you, it is only a third as far away as the Moon. (M-O-O-N, moon.) Good old 2002 MN is what is called a “near earth asteroid,” a heavenly body that comes at least within 1.3 Astronomical Units (AU) of the Earth. An AU is defined as the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
Digging Deeper
Asteroids are basically mini-planets, chunks of rock that orbit the Sun in our solar system. Some are large enough that if they struck the Earth, the resultant dust cloud could cause such darkness that an ice age could be triggered that could spell the end of civilized life as we know it for humans. An asteroid probably caused the last great dinosaur extinction. The largest known asteroid has a diameter of 952 kilometers! A rock that big could certainly spell doom should it hit our planet.
Comets are similar to asteroids but are made up of icy frozen materials and have an atmosphere. As they pass close enough to the Sun to partially melt, they leave a spectacular trail of dust through space. These guys are up to 30 kilometers in diameter, and have the potential to have civilization altering consequences should one plow into our Earth.
Another cosmic event that would not only end civilization but will eventually end our planet is our Sun becoming a supernova. When the Sun grows to millions of times its current size, our planet will be consumed in the fireball. Not if, but when. Hopefully not for a few billion years, but you never know.
Can mankind end his own civilization? Nuclear weapons are so spread throughout the world that the prospect of a nuclear war with many nukes exploding would trigger what is called “nuclear winter,” a situation where the resultant dust clouds block the Sun and an ice age is upon us. Huge areas of habitable land could become inhabitable, rain and soil poisoned with nuclear fallout, and major industrialized countries reduced to wastelands. That would change things up! Obviously, with the end of the Cold War this scenario is not as possible as it once was, but that could change and change quickly.
A freakishly large volcanic eruption, or a period of excessive volcanic activity has the same potential to create an ice age by loading the atmosphere with sun blocking ash. Such activity could also alter the chemical make up of the atmosphere with negative consequences for mankind.
A naturally occurring dramatic change in climate could change things for mankind, either an ice age or global warming resulting in massive droughts and excessive heat. Whether caused by man or by nature, either event could have the potential to radically change civilization, and the most extreme climate change has the potential to eradicate mankind from the planet, maybe even all current life forms.
Can a Black Death type of plague end civilization? Scary mutant viruses and bacteria have the potential to cause massive fatalities if we cannot find a vaccination or cure fast enough to stave off disaster. Recent scares with Ebola and AIDS lets us know that Nature could spring this on us anytime, without our help. When humans help nature by genetically engineering a virus or other disease, the out of control bio-weapons scenario would have the potential to wipe us out ala Captain Trips (a fictional disease in Stephen King’s novel, The Stand, 1978) or the virus in 12 Monkeys (current TV show and 1995 movie). The population at large can only hope and pray our military leaders are not horror movie quality psychos that are working on such things.
Question for students (and subscribers): What do you think, one of the above or The Zombie Apocalypse? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
King, Stephen. The Stand. Anchor, 2012.