Leave Earth! Stephen Hawking Warns Humans To Colonize Another Planet In 100 Years Or Face Extinction

Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that humans need to colonize another planet in 100 years or face the risk of extinction. He had previously theorized that mankind has around 1,000 years left before becoming extinct. Now the timeline appears to have shortened, as per Hawking.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the professor will present his predictions that humans have only 100 years to colonize another planet in a new BBC documentary called Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth. The program is scheduled to be aired later this year.

According to the physicist, life on Earth is going to become increasingly precarious with population growth, endemics, climate change and overdue asteroid strikes. Hawking has issued several warnings about the future of humanity over the past few years. In fact, at the start of 2016, he had listed out dangers that could be a threat to the survival of humanity such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetically engineered viruses, global warming and nuclear war.

"Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," Hawking told the BBC News in an interview during that time. "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race."

The physicist had also added that humans will not be able to develop self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years. Therefore, mankind had to be very careful during this period.

Incidentally, the BBC program will see Stephen Hawking discuss the evolving science and technology that will be play a significant part for humanity to develop a plan to colonize another planet. The physicist will talk on various topics, from human hibernation and biology to rocket technology and astronomy, on the show.