Humans: it's time to abandon Earth or race extinction.

    It could be the plot of a summer blockbuster (大片), but this prediction isn't science fiction. It's a glimpse of the future, according to famous British scientist Stephen Hawking.

    “I see great dangers for the human race，” he said in an interview with global forum Big Think. “There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go.”

    “I believe that the long¬term future of the human race must be in space，” he said.“ It will be difficult enough to avoid disasters on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million.”

    Hawking, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, has recently voiced many concerns about the future of life on Earth.

    “If aliens visited us, the outcome would be as much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans，” he said. “Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads (游牧民), looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

    But Hawking says he's still hopeful for the future of humanity. He told Big Think, “We've made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space.”

    Getting to another planet will prove a challenge, not to mention colonizing it for humanity. Katherine Freese from University of Michigan told Big Think, “ the nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri which is 4.2 light years away. That means, if you were traveling at the speed of light the whole time, it would take 4.2 years to get there — or about 50,000 years using current rocket science.”