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An artist's conception shows a terraformed Mars in four stages of development.. Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on.
An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential is known as an "existential risk". [ 4 ] In the 21st century, a number of academic and non-profit organizations have been established to research global catastrophic and existential risks, formulate potential mitigation measures ...
If Mercury or a rogue planet of similar size were to collide with Earth, all life on Earth could be obliterated entirely: an asteroid 15 km wide is believed to have caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, whereas Mercury is 4,879 km in diameter. [136] The destabilization of Mercury's orbit is unlikely in the foreseeable future. [137]
The Gaia hypothesis (/ ˈ ɡ aɪ. ə /), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
While Earth is the only place in the Universe known to harbor life, [10] [11] estimates of habitable zones around other stars, [12] [13] along with the discovery of thousands of exoplanets and new insights into the extreme habitats on Earth where organisms known as extremophiles live, suggest that there may be many more habitable places in the ...
The Arecibo message, sent to globular cluster M13 after the recommendations of Project Cyclops were not implemented [4]. To detect extraterrestrial civilizations with radio telescopes, one must identify an artificial, coherent signal against a background of various natural phenomena that also produce radio waves.
A group of scientists has devised a plan to safeguard Earth’s species in a cryogenic biorepository on the moon. These scientists want to safeguard Earth’s species by cryogenically preserving ...
Mirror life presents potential dangers. For example, a chiral-mirror version of cyanobacteria , which only needs achiral nutrients and light for photosynthesis , could take over Earth's ecosystem due to lack of natural enemies, disturbing the bottom of the food chain by producing mirror versions of the required sugars. [ 15 ]