Scientific certainty says the beginning of the end for our planet Earth will take place 5 billion years from now when the Sun, having run out of hydrogen to convert into helium, expands and becomes a massive Red Giant star.

By 7.5 billion years, the Sun's surface will be past where Earth's orbit is now. The expanding Sun will have engulfed and destroyed the Earth and whatever life forms live on it at this time. It's almost certain that humans of the future — who will be physically and mentally so different from humans today and could be considered "inhumans" — will have colonized other exoplanets in galaxies far, far away.

This is the prevailing scientific dogma based on the physical sciences.

But clairvoyants, seers, oracles and soothsayers predict widely different outcomes for the apocalypse. And people believe other people who claim the power to see deep into the future, including the end of the world. Many people in the Western world believe the end of the world will occur in their lifetime, surveys continuously reveal.

A 2015 survey in the United Kingdom revealed 23 percent of the general public believed the apocalypse was likely to occur in their lifetime, compared to 10 percent of experts from the Global Challenges Foundation. This nonprofit Swedish foundation seeks to raise awareness of global catastrophic risk and the global governance necessary to handle these risks.

The general public believes the likeliest cause would be a nuclear war, while experts think this will be artificial intelligence or AI. Surprisingly, 3 percent of Britons think the end will be caused by the Last Judgment, compared to 16 percent of Americans. Credit this to the power of Christianity.

More bizarrely, between 1 and 3 percent of people from both countries think the apocalypse will be caused by a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion.

Now, we have to add that genius Leonardo da Vinci to the list of seers who have predicted when and how our Earth will end.

New research conducted by an expert in da Vinci’s works claims this polymath foretold the end of the world in his immortal painting The Last Supper (“Il Cenacolo”), which is the world’s most reproduced religious painting.

A new analysis of The Last Supper by Sabrina Sforza Galitzia, an Italian art expert who works in the Vatican archives, revealed a hidden message in the painting. Galitzia formerly studied da Vinci’s manuscripts as a researcher at the University of California.

Galitzia said The Last Supper reveals the exact date the world will end, according to da Vinci. According to her, da Vinci predicts the beginning of the end of the world will begin on March 21, 4006 and end on Nov. 1 of the same year. She got this information after studying the half moon window above The Last Supper that contains a "mathematical and astrological" puzzle.

Da Vinci's Last Supper
Da Vinci's Last Supper Creative Commons

Da Vinci believes the End of the World will be caused by a “universal flood” similar to that of Noah’s. This cataclysm, however, will mark "a new start for humanity,” Galitzia said in her interpretation of da Vinci’s “code” found in The Last Supper.

"There is a da Vinci code. It is just not the one made popular by Dan Brown," she quipped.

RELATED STORIES