Waves of sadness...?

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Just wanting to get some thoughts/feedback. My 9 year old AS son has been talking about having frequent waves of sadness lately, sometimes for no apparent reason. I don’t know if this is anxiety/depression or preteen hormones. He says it can come on quite rapidly. He is a bright kid and carries the world on his shoulder somedays i.e:
The end of the world, according to the Mayan prediction of 12/21/2012! He is thankful that we are living on a planet and not a star, as he would worry that the core of the earth would act like a star and implode one day with no warning. He then said the sun is a star and it could happen to it at anytime. He then finished by saying, no one seems to worry about all these big world problems or care. I know AS can have co-morbid conditions and I also worry because my Mom is Bipolar. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated!

I was a lot like your son, when I was your age. I had my first brush with depression at the age of 9. My mum didn't know what was going on, so she just kept sending me to my room, whenever I cried that summer. It took me a long time to forgive her for that, but I've managed to be able to do that.

My daughter is like that, getting sad for no reason. Kids are not immune from chemical depression. I would talk to his doctor about it; while they aren't likely to do anything at this age, they do like to monitor the situation.

I had an astronomy instructor that loved to end his lecture on the depressing note of the death of the universe.....heat death, where the universe keeps expanding forever such that objects become effectively isolated from one another, and when all heat has been dissipated and all possible reactions have occurred, the universe turns into an endless dead void, never to be alive again.

Of course this only happens if the universe is indeed opened as opposed to closed.
In the closed universe gravity eventually pulls everything back together, which supposedly results in a new big bang.

Anyway, it might just be that your son is very bright and has the capacity to realize things that most people don't think about, as he pointed out, and don't understand.

I think he would benefit from learning more about astronomy and cosmology. The depressing things, such as the end of life on Earth, the death of the sun, multiple alien civilizations being potentially wiped out by a super nova, the very very very unrealistic scenario that we might be alone in the universe (we are very very very likely not alone), are actually minimal compared to the interesting things.

I think I would probably just tell him that yes, these things will happen someday, but in the sun is thought to have 5 billion years of fuel left, there are many more starts already born, and yet to be born that might harbor solar systems with life, and he should focus on all of the wonderful and interesting things in the universe because there is no point in spending life worrying about the end of it.

You might take him to an observatory or buy him a telescope or a good pair of binoculars if he doesn't have such things. I could direct you in what to buy if you like.