Reality of what would happen if Earth lost all oxygen for five seconds is leaving people terrified

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Featured Image Credit: Roberto Machado Noa/Getty/TikTok/@mulligan.tv

A viral TikTok video is freaking people out online

Published 17:25 4 May 2024 GMT+1

The reality of what would happen if Earth lost oxygen for just five seconds is rather alarming.

We all know that we need oxygen to live and breathe, and spending too much time without it is going to eventually lead to death.

I think a lot of us don't realize how important oxygen actually is, though a viral TikTok video certainly emphasis it.

Writing on Quora, (as per The Independent), Andrew Cote - a scientist from the University of British Columbia - explained what would happen.

And to say it will be bad is an understatement.

To begin with, we'd all get sunburn, because the Ozone layer above us is made of molecular oxygen and that protects us from the bulk of the UV light coming from the Sun.

So, we'd certainly end up with some bad sunburn, that's for sure.

Combustion engines also need oxygen to keep going, so they'd all stall as well.

Cote went on to say that every bit of unwelded metal would instantly weld to each other, as metal is mostly coated with a layer of oxidation, so without that oxygen they would bond without a liquid stage.

The reality of no oxygen for five seconds is alarming. (Getty Stock Photo)

While that's all concerning, the physical changes we would notice to humans is rather scary.

Firstly, your inner ear would explode, because of a significant loss of air pressure.

We'd lose quite a bit of hearing following that too.

Geoffrey Widdinson, a Process Engineer from Texas, said: "In terms of breathing, we probably wouldn't notice. Our bodies can't detect oxygen deficiency, we can only detect high carbon dioxide levels. As long as CO2 isn't building up in our blood, we don't feel like we're suffocating.

"Actually, it would be disappointingly undramatic.

"The phenomenon of a hundred million cars stalling at once would get some attention, and people monitoring air pressure would notice the blip there, but we'd never figure out the cause and eventually just shrug it off."

An expert has taken to TikTok to weigh-in on the debate. (Getty Stock Photo)

Thomas Mulligan, who goes by @mulligan.tv on TikTok, added: "Initially, your body probably wouldn't even notice. But you would notice it, when the sky goes completely black,' Mulligan added, 'due to the atmosphere having no oxygen to scatter the rays of light from the sun."

He added: "Any form of transportation that relies on combustion would immediately stop working.

"The ozone layer would also be gone, causing everyone and everything to start the cooking process."

People have been left horrified by the revelation, with one person on social media commenting: "Hmmm, that's what I needed today, existential terror. Thank you very much."

"It just keeps getting worse," another person said.

Topics: Science, Environment, Health, Nature