Noted scientist Stephen Hawking has warned that Earth will become an unbearably hot and hellish world if global warming continues. Earth will one day look like the 460°C planet Venus if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions, he warned.
Hawking’s proposal
1. Hawking is working with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Starshot project to send a fleet of tiny ‘nanocraft’ carrying light sails on a four light-year journey to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Earth.
2. If successful, scientists could determine if Alpha Centauri, a star system about 25 trillion miles away, contains an Earth-like planet.
3. The small light-propelled vehicles will carry equipment like cameras and communication equipment.
4. Scientists hope the vehicles, known as nanocraft, will eventually fly at 20 per cent of the speed of light.
Why Hawking compares Earth with Venus
1 Venus, the second closest planet to the sun, was much like Earth 4 billion years ago, according to NASA.
2 The planet was habitable for around two billion years, with water at its surface and mild temperatures similar to Earth.
3 A build up of greenhouse gases in Venus’s atmosphere burned off its oceans and turned it into the scorching hot planet seen today, with winds of up to (300km/hr).
4 Rising temperatures caused water to evaporate from the planet’s oceans, which amassed in the atmosphere and trapped even more heat.
5 This feedback loop eventually burned off Venus’s oceans, with the planet’s surface temperatures now reaching 460°C.
Earlier observations of Hawking about Earth
1 Hawking had previously warned that planet Earth will soon become uninhabitable if climate change continues.
2.In fact, he had slammed US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement last year.
3.Hawking added that humanity must find a new home in space in the next 200 to 500 years, if we are to survive.
4. He called for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon
by 2020 in a bid to re-ignite space exploration.
5. They should also aim to build a lunar base in 30 years’ time and send people to Mars by 2025, he said.
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