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decorative picture for the mainstream pages Theory arrow back picture and link to the observational tutorials For the Braves of Heart: The Potential Threats to Earth from the Universe!

CONTENT - A catastrophism-bound list of all what is a threat to the Earth from the Universe! A tutorial in our series 'Advanced Studies in Astronomy'
 

It is not inordinately question, in the traditional amateur astronomy literature of dangers that cosmic events would brought Earth. Largest threat asserted in the amateur community in the 1970s was that Sun was going to "fry" Earth, 5 billion years from now, becoming a red giant. Assertion of such threats is clearly contemporary and certainly reflects a passage to what may be called catastrophism. It looks like some wrong ways might have been taken at one moment, bringing astronomers to interest themselves into considerations which, until then, had always been left apart. Military space programs, on a other hand, aiming at monitoring nuclear explosions also brought to more interest in those domains as events such as NEOs or energetic explosions in the Universe might interfere. A additional explanation is that a new collective representation would have developed among the community of profesional astronomers. The neodarwinist, string theorecists, on a other hand, are the other proponents of catastrophism in astronomy with specific scenarios of how Earth might come to be destroyed by the forces in the Universe like: collisions between planets of the solar system due to the irregularities of the orbit of Mercury or the close flyby of a star; the Earth's rotation halting; the Earth elongated and destroyed between two black holes, or destroyed from inside by a small black hole dating back to the time when, after the Big Bang, numerous such black holes would have been formed; disparition of gravity; antimatter; a strangelet made from up, down and strange quarks; or the survenance of a collision between branes, those elements of the conception of the Universe like engaged into a eternal cycling course The following list is for the braves of heart, as it's showing the potential dangers linked to astronomy, we might elaborate a count of. And, beware! Those are just the threats coming from the Universe, astronomically speaking, as other, various, weather, geological, or others threats might be listed as well, further thrilling you!... As far closest threats are concerned, they are noted unaccurate should they have proved such

Apart Joking. Most Likely Catastrophic Events for Earth and Humans
Apart from the long list below of catastrophes lurking, from an astronomical point of view, in the Universe about Earth, here are (as taken from a list issued by the FOXNews Internet site in January 2009), the most likely catastrophes capable of hitting our planet, and ourselves:

Less Nature, More Societal! A study at the Oxford University in 2015 is listing the potential threats to Earth by order of probability, from the least to the larger, which much more societal than natural:

A list, by chronologicial order of what could threaten Earth, from the Universe!

->A More Scientist's Approach to Some Energetic, Stellar Events in the Universe!
The university in Topeka, Kansas, as part of NASA's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, is embarking, since 2009, into a comprehensive study of all the possibly damaging energetic, stellar events which could send deadly radiations down to the vicinity of the Earth. The team plans to look into the following energetic events:
. supernova, as a couple of those are exploding in our Galaxy every century and damages being possible within a 10-light-year radius of the explosion
. long-duration GRBs, which are flows of gamma-rays, as generated by hyped supernovae, ten times more powerful than a supernova and the GRB emitted along the dying star's axis. Their range is in the order of 6,500 light-years. Their rate in the Milky Way Galaxy is varying with time as they might have been boosted in the past when our Galaxy merged with younger, small galaxies, with less heavy elements in those. From that time on, there could exist ticking-time stellar bombs in our Galaxy. One can speculate than, on average, a GRB explodes in the Milky Way Galaxy every 10 million years
. short-duration GRBs, which are thought to be the merger of two neutron stars, are releasing less energy than the previous kind, but with the fraction of high-energy gamma rays higher. Short-duration GRBs are more likely to occur in mature galaxies, like our Milky Way Galaxy, where neutrons stars are numerous
. soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are emitted by neutron stars, supposedly when the super-dense surface of them is cracking. Their damage range to Earth is of 10 light-years only. In 2004, as a SGR exploded 50,000 light-years away from the Earth, the energy released was still strong enough to disrupt radio waves on Earth! Their occurrence rate is unknown

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