Six theories about cosmic events that could wipe out life on Earth debunked

dailystar.co.uk:

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about the asteroid that could bankrupt the worldThe universe has been around for approximately 14 billion years, while Earth is around 4.5 billion years old.

So far, we’ve been quite lucky, but any of the following cosmic events could result in the total destruction of our planet.From time to time, bursts of energy from the sun’s surface reach Earth and get intercepted by our planet’s atmosphere, but should one of these streams of radiation prove too powerful, it could cause geomagnetic storms that would lead to global power outages, and consequently, worldwide chaos as food stocks and medicines go bad.We have witnessed an increase in solar activity in recent years, and although they do pose a risk to our power grids and satellites, but Karen C.

Fox, a senior science communications officer at NASA, has dispelled suggestions that a solar flare can put the Earth on to roast, saying even the biggest solar flares are "not powerful enough to physically destroy Earth."A narrow beam of energy caused by a nearby binary star system or a supernova could potentially reach Earth and eradicate our ozone layer, leaving us exposed to harmful UV radiation from the sun.

WR 104, a star system around 5,200-7,500 light years away, could potentially send a gamma ray beam in our direction at any moment, but the beam could also miss us altogether.Scientists at NASA and the University of Kansas, teaming up in September 2003, suggested that a mass extinction on Earth around 450 million years ago could have been triggered by a gamma-ray burst, although this hypothesis was not backed by evidence.