when will the world end?

Answer 1

We don't know at this time. There is no reason to expect it to end any time soon. Eventually, we could be hit by an asteroid. It wouldn't destroy the earth, but it could cause large scale extinctions.

We could be messed up by the collision with the Andromeda galaxy in something like 250 million years, but there is a good chance it will have little or no effect on the earth/sun relationship.

Finally, the sun is expected to expand into a red giant in 4 or 5 billion years. There is no way to survive that. Oceans and atmosphere would be boiled away. The earth may not be destroyed but it will become a lifeless rock like Mercury.

Answer 2

There are different ways to look at the end of the world. The answers so far have largely focused on when the sun becomes a red giant (and subsequently a white dwarf), but that isn't expected to happen for about 5 billion years.

The earth is actually expected to become inhospitable to life long before then. The web site listed below says the following:

"In about 500 million years the luminosity [of the sun] will be 10 percent higher. This will have dramatic effects on the earth. The rising temperatures will cause the water to vaporize more quickly and this extra greenhouse gas will lead to an increase in temperature. Because of this (runaway) greenhouse effect life will (certainly) be terminated within 1.1 billion to 3.5 billion years from now."

This occurs long before the red-giant phase, and is simply part of the normal slow change to a star on the main sequence. The earth will still be around at that point, but will likely be a lifeless planet. Life on earth is several billion years old, but we may be in the last 20% or so of the era in which the earth can sustain life.

Answer 3

The poet Robert Frost said the world will end in fire or in ice. He was right.

The universe have one of three futures:
1. it will expand forever and speed up expansion
2. it will expand forever and slow down expansion until it appears to have stopped.
3. It will expand, and then the gravity of all the matter will collapse it.

1. The bigger the universe gets the colder it gets, since there is only so much heat to go around. more space and same heat means colder. If this happens, we would 'freeze.'

2. This one is similar to the first one but depends on how much more expansion we would get, so we might freeze, we might not.

3. Brant's answer is good! for the fire part, and it covers the third possibility. If the universe collapses, it will get hotter and hotter until empty space is hotter than the surface of the sun.

Since these will all take a very long time, and the sun will become a red giant in 5 billion years, we are more likely to be cooked.

so 5 billion years and counting...better start the doomsday clock!

Answer 4

According to the Mayans 2012

according to Nostredamus a meteor will hit the earth on 2012
and the world will end on 3797

Answer 5

Life has finished and begun many times for different population, so....we have just one life and when my life finish, will be the end of my world.

Answer 6

At exactly 10:37 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, February 8, 2010. I know this is true because the little voices in my head told me so, and I saw it on YouTube.

Answer 7

A few billion years when the sun turns supernova or just turns into a white dwarf or neutron star.

Answer 8

I like the answer to this question that is in Isaac Asimov's short story "The Final Question".
You will have to find it and read it yourself as I would not want to spoil it for you with a synopsis.

Answer 9

Some people think that it will be december 23, 2012, but maybe not till your dead

Answer 10

No one can know that! Just take joy in the life you have.