What Would Happen If A Quasar Hit Earth?

Quasars are very powerful and can cause massive damage to anything they hit. These extremely powerful objects emit energy at an incredible rate, and they’re one of the most feared forces in the universe.

What would happen if our worst fears become reality and a quasar hits the earth? Would we escape with a few cuts and bruises, or would humanity as we know it be changed forever? 

What Is A Quasar? 

A quasar is a type of active galactic nucleus (AGN) that emits enormous amounts of radiation. They contain supermassive black holes which have masses ranging from billions to trillions of times greater than the mass of our Sun.

The black hole has such a strong gravitational pull that it sucks up surrounding matter into its event horizon. This causes the area around the black hole to heat up to millions of degrees, emitting light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

Quasars are usually found in galaxies located about 10 billion light-years away from us. Some quasars are visible to the naked eye, but others require large telescopes to see them.

Quasars are classified by how bright they appear. A quasar that appears dimmer than other quasars is called a low redshift quasar. A high redshift quasar is brighter than any other known object. High redshift means the quasar is further away from us, and thus its light took longer to reach us.

The brightest quasars are also the closest ones. The nearest quasar is located 4.2 billion light-years away from us. It was discovered on January 1st, 2012. It’s called 3C 273.

Has A Quasar Ever Hit Earth?

We know for certain that no quasar has ever hit Earth. Why, you ask? Well, simply because these things are so powerful, and so unrelenting, that if one ever had hit Earth, I wouldn’t be here to write this sentence, and you wouldn’t be here to read it.

How Could We Know That A Quasar Has Never Hit Earth?

If a quasar had ever hit Earth, would we know about it? Yep, we certainly would, because it would send not just our planet into chaos, but the entire Milky Way galaxy. If a quasar had hit Earth in the past, the chances of

Earth still being around are slim to none, and even if by some miracle, the Earth wasn’t completely annihilated in the encounter, it would be far from habitable by any form of life. This is how we know that no such encounter has taken place.

Is A Quasar Dangerous?

I think we’ve established here that quasars, though hauntingly beautiful, are horrific death machines floating through space. Scientists say that quasars are dangerous and that quasars pose a threat to life on Earth.

They say that quasars emit enough energy to destroy planets. And since quasars are extremely powerful, they could easily wipe out an entire solar system. In addition, quasars can cause massive explosions.

These blasts are so intense that they could destroy nearby stars. To put it simply, these things only destroy. Not only that, they’re considered the most dangerous and powerful forces in the entire known universe.

What Would Happen If A Quasar Hit The Earth? 

A quasar hitting the earth would create a colossal explosion. This explosion would be so strong that it would knock down satellites orbiting the earth. It would also send shock waves through our atmosphere. These shocks would make the air around us hot.

This heat would melt the ice caps on the poles, and the melting would lead to floods in places like Florida.

In addition, the blast would vaporize parts of the earth’s crust. This vaporization would expand into space. And as the pressure increased, it would eventually collapse back onto the surface of the earth. This collapse would cause earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.

In short, a quasar hitting the earth could result in catastrophic consequences. In essence, it would devour our solar system.

Could A Quasar Wipe Out Humanity? 

Theoretically speaking, yes. A quasar could wipe out humanity even if it didn’t come into contact with the Earth.

According to current scientific knowledge, a quasar cannot last forever. Eventually, it will die. When this happens, it will release enormous amounts of radiation, and if the quasar was close enough, these rays would be deadly.

However, there is another way that a quasar could destroy humanity. In theory, it could take over the world using its immense power (hear us out on this one).

The first effect would probably be the heating of the Earth to a ridiculous temperature through the destruction of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, we humans would not survive this, but thankfully, that means we’re not around for the next part when the quasar violently consumes, not just Earth, but our entire solar system.

That’s right folks, these behemoths of doom could swallow the Sun like it was cheese puff, and for dessert, and everything else in the vicinity would be dessert.

Quasars are known to be able to eat holes in entire galaxies, and once they’re through the other side, the unimaginable gravitational force surrounding these apocalypse bringers would send everything left behind into orbit around them.

How Could We Prevent A Quasar From Destroying Us? 

We could prevent a quasar from destroying us by moving away from the source of the quasar. But we couldn’t move far enough away. So, we’d still get fried.

But what if we moved to Mars? Well, according to current scientific knowledge, Mars doesn’t have any quasars. Therefore, we wouldn’t be exposed to any radiation.

But what if we went to the moon? Well, the moon has no quasars either. So, we’d be safe there.

But what about the rest of the universe? Well, we know that quasars are very rare. So, we should be fine anywhere else in the universe.

Realistically though, it’s unlikely we’d be able to move to Mars or the moon in time to prevent us from getting wiped out by a quasar. Plus, any quasar close enough to consume Earth would likely consume all possible nearby retreats too.

Thankfully though, quasars are INCREDIBLY rare, so while one hitting earth could be catastrophic, the chances of it happening are VERY low! And when we say low, we mean low!

Quasars are considered the most distant observable stellar objects, meaning the chances of them ever getting anywhere remotely close to Earth are so remote, the math is almost unfathomable.

By the time a quasar gets anywhere near Earth, we’ll already be fried by the sun due to the dissipation of the atmosphere. It’s a cherry though, I know, but at least it won’t be a quasar that gets us in the end.

Final Thoughts

A quasar is an extremely powerful object. And because of this, it can pose a serious threat to life on earth. If a quasar ever hits the earth, we could expect to see catastrophic damage and almost certainly the end of humanity and all other life. 

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Quasars are incredibly rare, so do we have to worry about one hitting the earth in our lifetimes? Probably not!