ladbible logo

To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories, we're happy to send you some reminders

Click 'OK' then 'Allow' to enable notifications

Humanity Is Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed.

Humanity Is Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed.

We're doomed.

James Dawson

James Dawson

See, the thing is, when certain people say certain stuff you're inclined to treat it with more than a hint of cynicism.

When Bill Clinton claimed 'he did not have sexual relations' with an intern, people were right to call bullshit. The same with seven-time Tour de France winning cyclist Lance Armstrong: when he claimed he wasn't roided up he was exposed as a fraud and stripped of his titles.

But when some people speak up it's only right that we listen, even if what they're saying very likely means the death of all humanity.

So read these words carefully, because they come from a very prestigious source: humanity is doomed because Earth is destined to become a lifeless red planet, just like Mars.

These are not the berserk ramblings of some nobody or phoney, but of Anjali Tripathi, an astrophysicist at Harvard University. Yeah, you read right, Harvard guys, one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

In a recent TED talk, she said that 400 pounds of hydrogen and almost 6.6 pounds of helium escape from Earth into space with every passing minute.

Eventually, this will cause such a massive change in the make-up of Earth's atmosphere that life will be unable to cling on any longer and the surface will be become blood red and barren.

She said the atmosphere is little more than a "tenuous veneer around our planet", which "allows life to flourish."

"It's such an amazing phenomenon that the fact it is disappearing should frighten you," she added.

Mars was thought to have a weather system just like ours in the past, which means it may even have been home to living organisms. Just like our planet in the future, with the process likely to speed up because the Sun is set to grow ever brighter, something similar will happen, until it eventually engulfs much of the solar system.

Tripathi added: "What we can look forward to, or at least prepare for, is the fact that in the future the Earth is going to look more like Mars.

"Our hydrogen from water breaking down will escape into space more rapidly, leaving us with a dry, reddish planet."

Happily, we have a few billion years left, so we're all safe for now. Sorry probably should have mentioned that earlier.

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Viral, Science, World News, mars, Weird, Earth

Choose your content: