What should happen to destroy everything on Earth alive?
Cosmic catastrophe of some magnitude should occur to destroy all life on our planet? This question was put before a group of American astrophysicists, article which was just published in the journal Scientific Reports.
It has long been known that our planet has experienced at least five periods when for various reasons, which still arguing biologists, on the Ground there was a mass extinction of plant and animal species.
The last such event was caused, according to modern concepts, the fall of an asteroid in the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago. Then killed about 75% of all existing species on Earth, including all dinosaurs. They destroyed a giant tsunami and the global winter caused by emissions of smoke and ash.
Now, however, scientists came to the conclusion that complete sterilization of our planet will take a disaster much larger scale and complete evaporation of the oceans.
“They put a Grand question — how do persistent organic life? — and translated it into the language of equations, making the appropriate calculations: how much energy will it take to boil all the World’s oceans?” explains astrophysicist and expert on ekzoplanetu Princeton University Joshua winn, who was not involved in the study.
First of all, the authors calculated the amount of energy required to heat all the water on Earth above the temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. It was 6×10 in the 26th degree of joules, which is about a million times the annual energy consumption of all mankind.