Matt Damon
Player Valuation: £60m
Two risks to the planet:
These are the sun running out of fuel and turning into a red giant and engulfing us (6 billion years from now)
Or super novae occuring within 100-3000 light years of Earth.
Supernova - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Near-Earth supernova - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of supernova candidates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A near-Earth supernova is a supernova close enough to the Earth to have noticeable effects on its biosphere. This would need to be nearer than about 100 to 3000 light-years away, depending upon type and energy—different figures have been suggested. Gamma rays from a supernova would induce a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere converting molecular nitrogen into nitrogen oxides, depleting the ozone layer enough to expose the surface to harmful solar and cosmic radiation. This has been proposed as the cause of the end Ordovician extinction, which resulted in the death of nearly 60% of the oceanic life on Earth.[96] In 1996 it was theorized that traces of past supernovae might be detectable on Earth in the form of metal isotope signatures in rock strata. Iron-60 enrichment was later reported in deep-sea rock of the Pacific Ocean.[97][98][99]
Type Ia supernovae are thought to be potentially the most dangerous if they occur close enough to the Earth. Because these supernovae arise from dim, common white dwarf stars, it is likely that a supernova that can affect the Earth will occur unpredictably and in a star system that is not well studied. One theory suggests that a Type Ia supernova would have to be closer than a thousand parsecs (3300 light-years) to affect the Earth.[100] The closest known candidate is IK Pegasi (see below).[101] Recent estimates predict that a Type II supernova would have to be closer than eight parsecs (26 light-years) to destroy half of the Earth's ozone layer.[102]
Now you say we've lasted this long on the planet?
Well our planets out on one the spiral arms (Orion-Cygnus arm) of the milky way galaxy and we're rotating around the centre of the galaxy and the rate of rotation is different depending on position.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/236084main_MilkyWay-full-annotated.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Universe_Reference_Map_(Location)_001.jpeg
The Sun's orbit around the Galaxy is expected to be roughly elliptical with the addition of perturbations due to the galactic spiral arms and non-uniform mass distributions. In addition, the Sun oscillates up and down relative to the galactic plane approximately 2.7 times per orbit. This is very similar to how a simple harmonic oscillator works with no drag force (damping) term. These oscillations often coincide with mass extinction periods on Earth; presumably the higher density of stars close to the galactic plane leads to more impact events
So basically, we go around the centre of the galaxy bouncing up and down and we're more likely to get wiped out on earth each time we pass through the galactic plane, which we do once every 1/3 of a galactic orbit.......
It takes the Solar System about 225–250 million years to complete one orbit of the galaxy
so 1/3 of 250million is 83 million years...
so every 83 million years we have a real big chance of being wiped out on earth
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