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WHAT IF
  • 12/25/2023
Would we be able to stop it?

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TV
Transcript
00:00 Ah, the planet Earth.
00:02 Our beautiful home.
00:04 We'd like to believe it will be around forever.
00:08 But what if it isn't?
00:10 Aliens, comets,
00:12 weapons of mass destruction,
00:14 black holes,
00:16 even the Sun could destroy the Earth.
00:18 So what's it going to be?
00:20 How will it affect you or your descendants?
00:24 And would we be able to stop it?
00:27 This is WHAT IF,
00:29 and here's what would happen
00:31 if we knew the time the Earth will die.
00:35 In July of 2019,
00:38 we had a narrow miss with asteroid 2019 OK.
00:43 Its impact would have been similar to a nuclear bomb.
00:47 And the scariest thing?
00:48 Scientists didn't see it coming until it was too late.
00:52 NASA would need a whole year's notice
00:54 to stop a doomsday collision.
00:56 How would they do that?
00:58 They'd launch an object into space
01:00 to collide with the asteroid,
01:02 destroying it before it got close to Earth.
01:05 Barring any more immediate dangers,
01:07 will the Earth still die?
01:10 What will it look like in the near future,
01:12 and the distant future?
01:14 What could we do to save the Earth?
01:18 You know, Earth wasn't always the diverse paradise
01:21 we know it as.
01:23 In fact, about 4 billion years ago,
01:25 it looked more like something from a sci-fi movie.
01:29 Supervolcanoes, meteors, and a toxic atmosphere
01:33 made our planet inhospitable.
01:36 So how did it become today's Earth?
01:39 It went through many geological,
01:41 atmospheric, and evolutionary steps.
01:44 In fact, Homo sapiens only came into the story
01:47 about 200,000 years ago.
01:50 Human life evolved during a time
01:52 when the climate was mild and stable,
01:55 enabling a vast diversity of life,
01:58 something we take for granted.
02:00 Today, we're already beginning to see
02:03 the effects of rapid changes to our climate
02:05 and the destruction it causes.
02:08 What will the future look like
02:09 if we continue down this path?
02:12 How will it affect your children?
02:15 The next 100 years,
02:16 we'll see temperatures rise 3°C (104°F).
02:20 That may not seem like a lot,
02:21 but it is enough to create droughts,
02:24 extreme wildfires,
02:26 stronger hurricanes, and food shortages.
02:29 200 years into the future,
02:31 the world's population will reach 9 billion.
02:35 Hopefully, we spend all that time
02:37 between now and then creating new technology
02:40 to offset the environmental destruction
02:43 and keep up with the demand for food.
02:45 In 300 years,
02:47 humanity will be considered a Type I civilization
02:50 on the Kardashev scale,
02:52 which means we use all the available resources
02:55 on our planet.
02:57 If only we could get to Type II
02:59 and use the power of the Sun,
03:00 or even Type III,
03:02 which uses galactic power.
03:05 These are things that could affect
03:06 your direct descendants.
03:08 But let's jump even further into the future,
03:11 when humans may or may not even be around.
03:16 In 100,000 years from now,
03:19 the biggest star in the Milky Way,
03:21 Canis Majoris, will explode.
03:24 The supernova will be visible from Earth
03:27 in pure daylight.
03:29 As this is going on,
03:30 20 supervolcanoes will spew out
03:33 417 cubic kilometers of magma
03:37 in all directions.
03:38 At this point,
03:39 Earth will be starting to resemble
03:41 the planet we saw 4 billion years ago.
03:45 In 600 million years,
03:47 the Sun will begin to burn up the Earth
03:50 as the Sun gets hotter from its shrinking core.
03:53 The only life left on Earth
03:55 800 million years into the future
03:57 will once again be single-celled organisms.
04:01 And 2.8 billion years into the future,
04:04 the Earth's temperature will be a scorching 150°C (170°F).
04:09 There will be no life left on Earth.
04:13 Can we stop this slow demise
04:15 into a piece of lifeless rock?
04:18 Probably not.
04:19 In fact, our current actions
04:21 might even be speeding up the process.
04:24 Instead, we could work towards
04:26 prolonging this calm period in Earth's history
04:29 by protecting its life-sustaining ecosystems
04:32 and using renewable resources.
04:35 The end of the Earth
04:36 has captured many people's imaginations.
04:39 There are even doomsday groups
04:41 with specific theories on how the end will come.
04:44 Some people believe that aliens will show up
04:46 and wipe us out,
04:47 maybe because of our rich natural resources,
04:50 or maybe they just won't like us.
04:53 Other people believe that
04:54 we will be sucked into a planet-destroying black hole
04:58 caused by the Large Hadron Collider.
05:01 Oh, and don't forget deathly gamma-ray bursts,
05:03 which can produce as much energy in one millisecond
05:07 as the Sun does in its entire lifetime.
05:11 But what about us?
05:12 Can we destroy the Earth
05:13 with weapons of mass destruction?
05:16 Luckily, no.
05:17 We might be able to wipe humanity out,
05:19 but to physically destroy the Earth
05:22 is not possible.
05:24 The most powerful explosive device
05:26 detonated so far
05:28 is the Soviet-built Tsar Bomba,
05:31 also called Big Ivan.
05:33 The 50-megaton hydrogen bomb
05:36 detonated in 1961 in the Arctic
05:39 was over 3,000 times more powerful
05:42 than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
05:45 Yeah, we'd need one quadrillion Tsar Bombas
05:48 to obliterate the Earth.
05:51 In the long term,
05:52 the Earth will eventually die.
05:54 But hopefully, we can fend off
05:56 any immediate disasters,
05:58 and use that time to figure out a way
06:00 to continue our existence
06:01 through technological and biological advances.
06:06 How would the human race react
06:07 to news that the Earth,
06:09 like any living organism,
06:11 is on its way to the great beyond?
06:14 Would it divide us,
06:15 or unify us?
06:18 Even though the Earth will die,
06:20 whether that's sooner or later,
06:23 we can make it a better place
06:25 while we're here.
06:26 For now, this is all we've got,
06:28 so let's take better care of the environment,
06:32 and maybe stay away from
06:33 weapons of mass destruction.
06:34 We don't want to risk a World War III.
06:37 But that's a story for another WHAT IF.
06:41 (upbeat music)