GRB Bye-Bye

I saw one about the potential of a specific type of supernova that would essentially fire out beam of radiation (or some other kind of energy.)

If it hit earth, we would see the entire sky covered with auroras. This is the ozone layer burning off and the last thing we would see before we all die, guess at least we get a pretty lightshow to end on

- grizwa

Astronomer here! You are thinking of a gamma ray burst (GRB).

However, for a star to do this to earth it has to be extremely close to us (within a few thousand light years), a distance within which we can see the bright, almost going supernova stars well, and the beam is just a few degrees wide and has to be directed exactly at us.

As such we don't think there are any GRB-killing potential events near Earth. They're also just so darn rare- we estimate a galaxy our size produces one every million years or so.

- Andromeda321

Serial Failures

It is speculated that there are over 2000 active serial killers in the US alone. It makes you realize that many of the serial killers we know of today--- Bundy, BTK, Gacy, are ultimately failed serial killers.

It's like that Usual Suspects line--- " the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist"

- tpsince93

Doesn't help that the entire profile of a serial killer is so well known that any serial killer with half a brain cell would be subverting it intentionally. The only serial killers that fit the standard profile of a serial killer are the most compulsive, incompetent serial killers.

If you're only looking in places where there's a pattern for a serial killer, a serial killer without a pattern is hard to trace. Add in "professional" serial killers like Israel Keyes and you have numerous types under the radar.

- Enoshima_Junko

Non-Zero

Every year there are a non-zero number of near miss nuclear detonations.

I.e. through faults in the system a nuclear warhead is almost launched/detonated. In 2005 it was reported that Russia had 26 such near miss events.

As far I'm aware no stats have been published since and no info for the US has been made public, however it is believed:

a) the US had a higher number of events in the same year, and
b) as they are typically caused by aging equipment and the numbers were increasing prior to that year, the number of events each year after likely kept increasing.

- drakonite

Never Ending Story

I remember hearing one theory that every time we "die", we instead instantly switch to an near exact universe were we didn't die, as if nothing happened. Other people's death remain the same since it's not yourself.

For example if you were to be hit by a car, in other peoples perspective you die, but in your own instead of dying, its a near miss, or you're injured but don't die.

- Vexilus

What gives me a serious mind f*ck with this theory is that in this situation, you would transport to a universe where you still interact with your friends as if nothing happened but that those same friends are mourning you and go on without you in your previous universe. And what if you live in a universe that is one of your friend's alternative universes that they transported to after they died?

Overall, what if our personal universe is completely based around one person's death and their eventual transfer to the universe you're in? Super weird.

- ih8urmindfcktheory

Losing Your Head

That, after decapitation, you may still be conscious and somewhat aware for at least a few seconds.

- Grinnzy

Also time and your perception of it is relative, and I have no idea WHAT it would be relative TO in this situation. So seconds could be soooo much more. ((Shudder))

- beastiebestie

Believe it's something like 2-28 seconds before you brain looses enough oxygen to fail.

Can't remember who it was but "death by beheading" (think it was using a guillotine) was stopped in the one country because the ruler was present and the guy who lost his head stared and blinked at him for long enough that he decided to stop killing people that way.

- TAOJeff

Selfish, Cowardly, and Scary

That theory about what happened on the missing Malaysian flight.

From looking at the evidence and the most likely scenario, (that being the pilot committing suicide) people have been able to piece together possible scenarios that happened on the plane. One of which is that shortly into the flight, the pilot deoxygenated(?) the plane, and accelerated to a high altitude, killing all on board very quickly.

He then flew for hours and hours south before crashing the plane. It's scary to me because he would have been flying in an isolated part of the Earth, with nothing ahead of him other than the South Pole. That isolated plane, flying in the dark, with hundreds of dead strapped in their seats...

The nearest city, Perth, is still asleep and only beginning to wake up. There is no one, and nothing. To think of that man, flying with all those bodies in the dark to nowhere is very scary.

So selfish, and cowardly, but also very scary.

- idiedin2018

Permafrost

As Artic permafrost melts, it will release diseases that have been frozen in the ground for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and life on Earth will have no immunity to them.

- propagandave

Wonder how the world will react if a disease suddenly infected the whole world. We're good at following orders and social distancing so it won't spread that fast right

- CruyffsPlan

To The Left, To The Left

The Great Attractor.

Over the years, scientists and astronomers have charted out space and we have a fairly good understanding of what's out there; planets, moons, stars, space, etc. Gravity plays a big role in showing what is attracted to what, moons around planets, planets around stars, stars around black holes.

But people have began to notice that everything out there in the galaxy, is slowly, SLOWLY but surely, scooting LEFT on our map of the cosmos.

Everything and anything is drifting ever slowly in one united direction and something hidden and astronomically massive is dragging us and all known & unknown matter towards it.

And we have utterly no say or action in the matter.

- DaKing760

Carrington

The Carrington Event of 1859 might be something that happens on a natural cycle every 150 - 200 years or so, which means we are due.

A CME (coronal mass ejection) hit the Earth's magnetosphere and caused a giant geomagnetic storm. The entire ionosphere became charged and unstable with massive induced electrical current.

On the good side, such an event causes beautiful aurora ("northern lights") across the majority of the planet. On the bad side it's giant planet-wide solar EMP. It wreaked havok on telegraph systems, but they were about the only electrical equipment at the time.

If a similar event happened today, first the global satellite network would be annihilated, then any radio signals would break up (including your phone going dead), immediately followed by most radio equipment being fried.

Next, the power grids will go; not just a worldwide blackout, but power surges would destroy most of what's connected to the grid, including the chaos of the transformer and substations exploding.

Virtually every vehicle will suddenly shut off, and suddenly being very difficult to control will crash. Some heavily shielded military craft might survive, but in general commercial aircraft will suddenly fall from the sky.

All of this would happen extremely fast; from any one person's point of view it may seem to be instantaneous. If a bit stronger than the Carrington event it may also destroy the backup systems that protect critical infrastructure from disasters.

The Carrington event was over 150 years ago.

Earth been hit by significant (but much smaller) CMEs at least twice since then; they'd be enough to cause quite a bit of damage today, but manageable. A Carrington event sized CME had a near miss with Earth in 2012.

We actually have multiple solar flares hit our magnetosphere every year, just generally not that cause significant issues (though there are predictable events a couple times a year that interfere with some satellites for a couple hours a few days in a row)

Carrington event sized CMEs are common enough that within your lifetime it is pretty much guaranteed to see at least one or two more near miss events.

CMEs can be much stronger though. During certain parts of the 11 year solar cycle the sun regularly emits CMEs large enough that, if they hit Earth, would strip the atmosphere, boil off the oceans, and incinerate everything on the surface, sterilizing the planet.

There would be no real warning; depending where you were on the planet it would either be instantaneous or you'd have just enough time to see a glow in the sky from the wall of fire before it crested the horizon and engulfed you at several times the speed of sound.

GRBs are the only deadlier threat I am aware of.

- drakonite

The Bubble

We don't know whether the universe is in a true vacuum (lowest possible energy state) or a false vacuum (a local low, but not the lowest).

If the universe is a false vacuum, then at any point, at any moment, a quantum tunneling event could occur where that point spontaneously decays to a true vacuum. If that happened, a bubble would expand from that point at the speed of light that radically altered physics, instantly annihilating everything down to the subatomic level.

Since it travels at c, there'd be no warning, no way to see it coming. When it reached us you'd just instantly blink out of existence. Even if we are in a false vacuum, such an event doesn't become likely for at least 10 to the power of 139 years, which is an unimaginably big number - but it could happen at any moment at any point.

It could have already happened and the bubble could be heading straight for us, about to end us at any time. It's a great way to die as far as ways to die go, the scary part is just all planets, stars, and life that are or ever will be just up and disintegrating with no warning.

Not from a "it's bad for me" perspective, but a "everything that ever was or will be is just gone in an instant" perspective.

- fafalone

Reset

This is my theory or at least I haven't seen it before.

What if global warming is just the universe's way of resetting life before it gets too advanced? That's why we haven't met any other civilizations from other planets.

Kinda like a Rust server.

- ILIKEBACON12456

You'll Never Know

We are all strangers, including your family and your best friends.

No matter what.

You may know them, but they're different people truly. You will never really know what they are thinking of you or anyone in general.

- Yeeto_The_Dorito

They Won't Exist

It freaks me out that things that are so commonplace in nature won't exist by the end of our lifetime.

Eg. I went to Ireland and saw the dark hedges last year and the guide told us those trees are predicted to be gone within 20 years due to changed weather patterns and increased tourism.

Something so small but I remember seeing pictures of them as a kid and wanting to go there. Knowing they just won't exist quite soon is unsettling.

- Skullpter

It Really Didn't End Well

The Permian Triassic extinction event, also known as 'The Great Dying'.

It was the greatest mass extinction event in history, killing about 80% of all species on the earth.

One theory for how it happened is the Siberian Traps flood basalt erupting onto massive coal deposits, releasing an absurd amount of CO2, and causing catastrophic climate change.

Basically, climate change caused by burning fossil fuels has happened before, and it really didn't end well.

- MattTheTubaGuy

Strange Sludge

Strange matter.

Inside Neutron stars is a kind of quark soup. Strange quarks May naturally occur here which aren't usually likely to form matter. If the neutron starts was to collide with another it would spew out its insides.

Strange matter is perfectly stable and dense, therefore indestructible.

Whatever matter it touches becomes so 'impressed' by its stability, it will become strange matter too. If one of these 'strangelets' hit Earth, everything would just become hot dense strange sludge.

- tartar-buildup

Dust

I have heard of a theory that if enough satellites get stuck in orbit, that if an explosion were to set the satellites in one direction around the planets orbit, that that one satellite would continue to crash into other satellites, causing those them to continue spinning with that force.

This would continue, the satellites breaking apart, becoming smaller and smaller, until the only thing left is a fine dust that is spinning in the planets orbit, causing a cloud to black out the sun.

And as much crap we have in earth's orbit, that genuinely worries me.

I think its called Kesslers Syndrome.

- MightyHellRazr

Blue

A Himba Tribe in Africa had a slew of words for the color 'green'... and not one for the word 'blue'. During a color swatch test, members of the tribe could distinguish between subtle shades of green at a glance, but due to a lack of a word for 'blue', could only identify a clearly and distinctly blue swatch half the time during testing. Possible Conclusion: Without a word for something, we might have trouble identifying that thing even if it was right in front of us. One Ref: [https://www.gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-see-colour/]

The Awareness Test: https://youtu.be/Ahg6qcgoay4

The Theory: without a word for a thing, we might not be able to identify or recognize a thing... even if it was right sitting right in front of us. Even if someone pointed it out to us. Even if we were told exactly what to look for.

What are cats staring at, anyway..?

- JustAPerspective