Random Poll of the Day! (713)

[Kor]

Sorry if this poll doesn't seem too scientific. I don't know much about Astronomy.

[kei]

MAJIN BUU!!!

[ProfParanoia]

It'll just stop being inhabitable and be like Mars, I don't think it will cease to be until the Sun dies.

[Commi-Ninja]

The end is coming!

[Akonyl]

damn Mayans. If they'd never made that calendar, we would still be alive next year!

[Commi-Ninja]

Exactly, Akonyl!

[nomemory]

It'll just stop being inhabitable and be like Mars, I don't think it will cease to be until the Sun dies.

^

[Hime-Chan]

It will die naturally, because of the Sun, though, I'm not sure if the human race will still be around by this time.

[Aokochan]

I think it will die when the Sun dies, or naturally like other planets. I don't think humanity will destroy everything on Earth, because I think we'll destroy ourselves first.

[Stopwatch]

So many ways for humanity to be wiped out~!

Let's see, there's black holes ('cause they just expand and basically cannot be stopped... unless it's by another black hole in which case it adds the smaller one to it to get even bigger).
Our atmosphere going more Venus-like (which it's already on its way to ) so the Sun's rays can't get through and other things.
Killing ourselves through either overpopulation or WMDs.
The Sun becoming a Red Giant would also work, but I reckon we'd already be gone by then anyway.
PHOs crashing into Earth and wiping out the population, which would probably fall into the meteor option.
Andromeda crashing into the Milky Way could be pretty troublesome too , though again, I think we'll have been wiped out way before that happens.

So... while most of them will probably happen, it'll be one of the earlier ones that'll kill us off so... humanity kills itself, PHO or the Earth 'naturally' dying (though it'd be partly aided by us anyway, I think).... I'll go for the second of those so as to not be *too* cynical .

EDIT: D: Misread the question as 'humanity' instead of 'Earth' for some reason D: [me=Stopwatch]goes off to rethink this.[/me]

[Akonyl]

So many ways for humanity to be wiped out~!

Let's see, there's black holes ('cause they just expand and basically cannot be stopped... unless it's by another black hole in which case it adds the smaller one to it to get even bigger).

just as a clarification (dunno if it's what you meant or not though), while black holes do get bigger by pulling stuff in, they're still gravitationally the same as the star they come from. So, even in the case that our Sun collapsed into a black hole, things would be no different for the solar system (aside from how cold the planets would become ).

also, depending on whether or not Hawking Radiation actually exists (dunno if it's still just theorized or what), black holes can actually end up disappearing if they don't pull enough mass into themselves to stay alive.

[Callid]

Basically, we fist have to distinguish what we mean with "die". There are several options:
a) human extinction
b) death of all multi-cellular life
c) death of all life
d) destruction of the planet itself

I consider it to be rather likely that we'll manage to bring a) on ourselves. There are many candidates for that, and it doesn't seem that unlikely that one of them will happen, especially with nuclear or nano-weapons, though global warming is also a nice alternative.
b) is far more difficult to accomplish, especially as there are multi-cellular beings which specialize in overcoming hardships that easily kill humans. I'd say it's not that likely we'll manage to do that, at least not with our current technology, though we might easily reduce multi-cellular to insects etc. by means of a global nuclear war, basically at the same time when we reach a).
c) is pretty much as far as humanity can go, by use of nanites or similar technologies. I don't think we'll get to that, simply because we'll probably run into an a) before be develop the necessary technologies. In any case, in 1-2 billion years from now, we'll get to this point thanks to the sun increasing in size and temperature so much it'll render earth uninhabitable.
d) will eventually happen, when, in a bit over 10 billion years from now, the size of the sun will increase and swallow all of the inner planets (save Mars). There'll likely be a lot of encounters until then - for example, the collision with Andromeda - but these might well leave Earth itself unhurt (well, as far as the planet itself is concerned; life will, as I said above, be gone in 2 billion years anyway).

I went with humanity itself causing the death, BTW (and therefore chose a)/b) as the "death").

Also, unless you define "death" as a) (and, perhaps, b) nothing but the first and third option has any likeliness. And the last one is obviously impossible.

[Akonyl]

And the last one is obviously impossible.

tell that to the future civilization that straps warp drives to the Earth to fly it from one star system to the next

[Callid]

And the last one is obviously impossible.

tell that to the future civilization that straps warp drives to the Earth to fly it from one star system to the next

Within reasonable boundaries, obviously. If we find out the laws of physics are different then we thought they were, things might also look different for earth's future

[Stopwatch]

So many ways for humanity to be wiped out~!

Let's see, there's black holes ('cause they just expand and basically cannot be stopped... unless it's by another black hole in which case it adds the smaller one to it to get even bigger).

just as a clarification (dunno if it's what you meant or not though), while black holes do get bigger by pulling stuff in, they're still gravitationally the same as the star they come from. So, even in the case that our Sun collapsed into a black hole, things would be no different for the solar system (aside from how cold the planets would become ).

also, depending on whether or not Hawking Radiation actually exists (dunno if it's still just theorized or what), black holes can actually end up disappearing if they don't pull enough mass into themselves to stay alive.

I think the Sun is unlikely to become a black hole (nowhere near big enough or with enough energy, iirc it's most likely to go the Red Giant -> Planetary Nebula -> White Dwarf -> Black Dwarf route), I was talking more in general.
And black holes are normally formed from, well, really big, powerful stars (:P)so  are incredibly dense and their gravitational field is absolutely huge; if anything gets caught inside accretion disk they'll eventually be doomed. Seriously, if even light can't escape them, I doubt we can .
/end random thing Stop hopes she got right \o/