Stephen Hawking Warns Humanity Has 1,000 Years to Find a New Planet

Stephen Hawking asserts humans have 1,000 years to find a new planet to live.

Theoretical scientist and astronomer Stephen Hawking says humanity will not make it another 1,000 years on earth because of nuclear weapons, global warming and artificial intelligence.

Speaking earlier this week at Oxford University Union, Hawking says our best chance for survival would be to leave Earth and live on other planets.

“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 1,000 or 10,000 years,” Hawking argued. “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.”

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Stock Photo: February 2015, theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking arrives at the 2015 BAFTA film awards ceremony in London. (Martin Hoscik / Shutterstock.com)

Hawking did offer some advice to humanity. “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, wonder about what makes the universe exist,” he said. “Be curious. However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”

Stephen Hawking is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author at the University of Cambridge. Hawking is a major proponent of the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics – a theory that argues that there is an infinite number of universes where everything that could have happened in our past, but did not occur, has actually occurred in some alternate universe.

This is not the first time Hawking warned the world was coming to an end. In 2006 Hawking said, “In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?” Hawking later added, “I don’t know the answer. That is why I asked the question, to get people to think about it, and to be aware of the dangers we now face.”

Humanity may be moving to Mars, if SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk has anything to do with it. Musk announced a plan to send people to Mars. In a speech two months ago at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico, Musk announced that SpaceX is planning on moving 100 people and their cargo to Mars.  In addition, NASA is currently planning an unmanned mission to Mars as soon as 2018 and a manned mission by the 2030s.

However, the transition from Earth to Mars does come with a long list of inherent risks. Mars is over 140 million miles away and the journey would take nearly a year to complete. In addition, researchers have found evidence that traveling to Mars could cause brain damage and long-term space travel causes nervous system damage.