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| Il maggiore T. J. "King" Kong cavalca una bomba atomica nel finale de "Il Dr. Stranamore" di Stanley Kubrik |
millennial view of the proliferation of absurdities that fill the media, the magazine "Le Scienze " (Italian edition of "Scientific American ") has dedicated the November issue of the "end of science." It is a number of easy to read, full of interesting ideas, I would advise everyone to buy (including the attached book "The End everything from individuals to the entire universe ", by Chris Impey).
A particularly provocative article titled "Predictions for the apocalypse."
Since lists and charts are all the rage, the authors (J. Matson & J. pavlus) have made a estimate that, without scientific pretense but according to the informed opinions of various researchers, the likelihood and the catastrophic potential of some threats that are mentioned frequently. That potential is formulated according to a qualitative rather than quantitative scale, ranging from 1 (localized chaos) to 10 (end of the universe).
I borrowed the points of this revised classification of the contents (which are in a bit 'caption). Here they are ...
Supertempesta solar
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| Sunburst taken on 29/09/2008 by the STEREO probes | |
Potential destructive grade 2
The Sun is a star, that is a huge nuclear fusion reactor in the explosive action is held in balance by its enormous gravitational pull.
The surface of our star is periodically shaken by huge explosions in space that project a stream of particles charges. These, if thrown in the direction of our planet when they reach the result to the ethereal aurora. Sometimes, when they are particularly intense, interfere with or cause problems for telecommunications satellites in orbit. Very rarely cause damage to power lines on the planet.
In 1859 took place a particularly intense solar storm, so that the polar auroras were seen to the tropics. NASA commissioned a study by the Academy of Sciences ( here) showed that intensity of a phenomenon that could lead to serious trouble for the entire planet. It could knock out energy networks and communications systems worldwide, devastating event for the advanced countries whose societies are characterized by a high degree of electronic connections.
learn more: [1 ] and [2 ].
Global Warming uncontrolled
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| The polar cap in 2007 has reached its lowest level in 30 years |
Potential destructive Grade 3
has been calculated that if the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica were to melt completely, sea levels could rise by about 12 meters, erasing the coastal cities and forcing hundreds of millions of refugees to move elsewhere.
decrease the area cultivated, would advance the desertification, the extremes of the weather, would be heavily altered sea currents and weather, would be devastated the most important ecosystems.
Among all, is perhaps the most likely disaster. It is up to us.
Detail: [ 3].
pandemic killer
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| 1411 Presentation of the Black Death |
potential destructive Grade 4
The Black Death , between 1347 and 1352, carries off between a quarter and a third of its population. At that time transport was the fastest sailing boats or wagons pulled by horses, and the vast majority of the population did not move except at the nearest villages.
In a globalized world, where the displacements are massive and in a day you can safely reach the other end of mondo, le possibilità di diffusione di un nuovo virus o di un adattamento più letale di un virus già noto sono enormi. Secondo molti esperti l'umanità non è preparata ad affrontare una simile evenienza, che potrebbe essere catastrofica.
Anche in questo caso gli uomini potrebbero metterci lo zampino. La possibilità che un virus letale prodotto artificialmente a scopo bellico o di ricerca sfugga al nostro controllo è sempre dietro l'angolo.
Supervulcano
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| Caldera del supervulcano dello Yellowstone |
potential destructive grade 5
I Supervolcanoes are capable of erupting volcanoes at least 1000 cubic kilometers of ash and lava. Do not have a structure recognizable as that of the mountain Vesuvius or Etna. It is widespread in lowland areas which can build up a huge magma chamber, where the explosion - as well as destroy everything at the local level to large distances - profoundly alter the climate of the planet for decades.
is very likely that one of these monsters hiding under the Yellowstone Park in the USA. This is an area of \u200b\u200babout 60 km in diameter (72 km per 55 km). È un cosiddetto punto caldo , una zona della superficie terrestre caratterizzata da un'anomala risalita del mantello verso la crosta e che presenta attività vulcanica da lunghissimo tempo.
Eruzioni catastrofiche come potrebbe essere quella dello Yellowstone sono avvenute nel passato. L'ultima in ordine di tempo è avvenuta circa 74.000 anni fa a Toba , in Indonesia e portò il genere umano sull'orlo dell'estinzione.
La zona dei Campi Flegrei, nel Napoletano, è considerata un piccolo supervulcano . L'ultima eruzione risalirebbe a 39.000 anni fa.
Guerra nucleare
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| nuclear explosion |
potential destructive grade 6
The nuclear arsenals of the superpowers have been reduced but not eliminated. An accident or a cyberattack could still trigger a nuclear exchange between the United States, Russia or China? Such an event would cause the destruction of all large cities, the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people, a nuclear winter that decimated the remaining population. The fall-out would make large regions of the planet uninhabitable for years and years.
am scenari che tanti film e libri ci hanno reso drammaticamente familiari (l'illustrazione di apertura di questo articolo è tratta da " Il dottor Stranamore, ovvero: come imparai a non preoccuparmi e ad amare la bomba ", uno dei capolavori di Stanley Kubrik del 1964) resi forse meno probabili dalla situazione politica attuale.
Un'eventualità più verosimile è un attacco terroristico su un'area urbana con l'impiego di testate più piccole; alcuni esperti stimano questa probabilità superiore al 50 per cento nei prossimi 15 anni.
Lampo di raggi gamma
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| Rappresentazione artistica di un lampo gamma |
Potenziale distruttivo: grado 7
I lampi gamma ( gamma ray burst ) sono tra i fenomeni più energetici noti nell'universo.
Sono fenomeni rari a livello galattico ma relativamente frequenti nell'universo. Se ne registra più o meno uno al giorno e provengono da direzioni casuali del tutto imprevedibili e da distanze enormi.
I fenomeni noti che possono dare origine a queste esplosioni sono i più estremi: le supernove, i collassi stellari che generano i buchi neri, la fusione di due stelle di neutroni.
In questi eventi possono essere emessi stretti fasci di raggi gamma estremamente intensi; dei veri e propri "fucili a pallettoni" cosmici che concentrano in pochi secondi (la loro durata va da alcuni millisecondi ad alcuni minuti) l'energia che una stella come il Sole può rilasciare in 10 miliardi di anni. Sono visibili solo dai satelliti perché, data la distanza, la radiazione gamma arriva così dispersa da essere completamente bloccata dall'atmosfera terrestre.
Finora non è mai stato osservato un lampo gamma prodotto nella nostra galassia e questa è una fortuna: se un fucile così vicino fosse puntato verso la Terra, il lampo potrebbe distruggere lo strato di ozono che ci protegge more intense ultraviolet and target the planet's surface radiation. Some researchers believe that one of these explosions could have contributed to the mass extinction of the 'Ordovician , which occurred 440 million years ago (here ).
There are several stars from the Sun distantissime not candidates for supernovae explode astronomically in the near future, but fortunately it seems that in no case the gamma-ray burst is directed toward us.
Detail: [ 4].
impact of a giant asteroid
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| The asteroid Ida (53 km long) and its moon Dactyl (over 1 km in diameter) |
potential destructive Grade 8
Even This was amply represented by Hollywood and looted (Meteor, Armageddon, Deep Impact).
scenario of some celestial body on a collision course toward Earth as prophesied by some mysterious ancient civilizations of the knowledge is also one of the applicants in the imagination of disaster (Nibiru, Apophis, and who knows what else).
other hand, even the children ormai sanno che una delle ipotesi più accreditate per l'estinzione dei dinosauri, 65 milioni di anni fa, alla fine del Cretaceo , è quello dell'impatto asteroidale. Asteroidi grandi e piccoli e comete hanno colpito la Terra in passato, lo fanno attualmente - le stelle cadenti o bolidi che possiamo vedere ogni notte non sono altro che piccoli asteroidi - e continueranno a farlo nel futuro.
Le probabilità che un corpo di dimensione dell'ordine di una decina di chilometri possa colpire la Terra causando estinzioni di massa paragonabili a quella del fine del Cretaceo sono dunque basse.
Tuttavia, anche un asteroide più piccolo potrebbe avere effetti catastrofici. Un oggetto diameter of 3 kilometers (event with probability about one in 200,000 in this century) could kill a quarter of the world's population and delete temporary civilization.
Detail: [ 5], [6 ] and [7 ].
The Sun becomes a red giant
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| The Sun becomes a red giant and engulfs the Earth |
Potential destructive grade 9
If models stellar evolution are correct, this case is not a possibility but a certainty.
The Sun radiates energy into space (in the form of light and heat) through a process of nuclear fusion by 4.5 billion years is turning the hydrogen into helium in its core. The energy produced in the nucleus counteracts the force of gravity, which tends to collapse the Sun These two forces are in balance and will remain so for another 5 billion years, when the hydrogen in the core of the sun will end. At that point, gravity will take over and the sun will collapse. Its core - which according to the models currently accredited should have a diameter of 300,000 km - is reduce more or less the size of Earth.
At these pressures and temperatures in the outer part of the nucleus will activate the process of fusion of helium into carbon, and areas immediately outside a layer of hydrogen begins to fuse into helium. The energy will be produced in large numbers and much closer to the Sun's surface, which then begin to expand. His range may increase among the one hundred and two hundred times. Almost 700,000 km from the present will probably incorporate the orbits of Mercury and Venus (which rotates around the sun at 108 million km) and perhaps even that of the Earth (150 million km).
Even if the Earth was not swallowed now his fate would be marked: the first will be burnt by the solar furnace, very close, and because of the increased emission of matter from the Sun, its orbit would decay, however, making the atmosphere hot sinking of the red giant.
Detail: [ 8]
bubble nucleation
potential destructive Grade 10
According to the cosmological theories most credited the entire universe originated 13.7 billion years ago from a singularity, a condition of infinite density and temperature in a region of infinitesimal size that would be expanded, giving rise to the fabric of space and time with all that it contains, which, according to observational data we have today, it is still growing.
is the famous Big Bang theory, which although not fully proven and universally accepted, is that at best explains all the universe as we see it, as seems to have evolved, allowing also to make predictions about phenomena that place there, many of which have been verified (others not). According to Professor
. Alexander Vilenkin, a cosmologist at Tufts University will continue the expansion of the universe forever. Moreover, the infinitesimal size it was in the universe at the Big Bang, quantum phenomena come into play. According Vilenkin our universe may have arisen spontaneously from nothing, after some fluctuation of the quantum vacuum.
The quantum fluctuations of vacuum could lead to the spontaneous creation of tiny universes from nothing. The vast majority of them are annihilated immediately, immediately collapsing into nothingness. Some of these "bubbles" but could reach a critical size, and expand, giving rise to new inflationary universes, perhaps with stars, galaxies and thinking beings.
would like a smaller bubble that expands rapidly into a bubble bigger, bringing with it new laws of nature, fundamental forces and constants different.
As the bubble "is expanding at nearly the speed of light" encompasses "the space around it, including what remains of the solar system." Our universe is experiencing a transition to the new state, where all the laws that have made possible galaxies, stars, planets and life itself as we see them stop di valere. In nostro stesso universo potrebbe essere una bolla che si è espansa dentro un'altra. Non solo, ma nuovo universo potrebbe essere nato in questo istante dentro il nosto, e noi non lo sapremmo fino a che la bolla non ci avesse raggiunto. Potrebbero anche esistere altrove (ammesso e non concesso che questo avverbio abbia senso parlando di leggi di natura diverse) altri universi, nati da altre bolle.
È un'ipotesi che possiamo mettere in fondo alla lista delle preoccupazioni? Secondo Vilenkin, l'ideatore di questa affascinante teoria, sì. È convinto che la nucleazione della bolla non si verificherà nei prossimi 1000 miliardi di anni ed è disposto a scommettere su questo «un sacco di soldi». Potremmo fare una colletta e accettare la scommessa. Tra 1000 miliardi di anni, se non sarà successo nulla, gli pagheremo il dovuto.
Approfondimenti: [ 9 ] e [ 10 ].
Per saperne di più:
- La bufala della tempesta solare nel 2013 ;
- La NASA risponde sul 2012 e Nibiru ;
- Il decalogo della disinformazione sul riscaldamento globale ;
- Gamma-Ray Bursts: introduction to a mistery ;
- Apophis e la fine del mondo nel 2036 ;
- ImpactEarth , an interactive online tool developed by Purdue University to estimate the effects of an asteroid impact (average frequency is also provided event);
- Meteoritics & Planetary Science 40, Nr 6, 817-840 (2005) , the physics of meteorite impacts in PDF;
- Will Earth Survive When the Sun Becomes a Red Giant?
- The creation without creating
- What happened before the Big Bang?
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