Earth's distant future: One billion years to uninhabitable
Scientists from NASA and Toho University in Japan predict that Earth will become uninhabitable in approximately a billion years. The principal causes of this eventuality are expected to be significant changes in Earth's atmosphere and the evolving Sun.
Researchers from NASA and Japan's Toho University forecast that Earth will no longer be able to support life in about a billion years. According to research published in "Nature Geoscience", Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere will transition to one filled with methane, which would end life as we know it.
What changes await Earth?
The supercomputer estimated that this will occur in the year 1,000,002,021. The study warns that even the most resilient organisms won't be able to live on the planet's surface then.
Christopher T. Reinhard and Kazumi Ozaki, the study's authors, predict that the Sun will evolve into a red giant, which could result in the engulfment of Mercury and Venus. For Earth, there are two possibilities: sharing the fate of its neighbouring planets or being moved to a more distant orbit. Over a billion years, the oxygen concentration on Earth could drop to less than 10 percent of the present level.
Does humanity have a chance to survive?
The study, partially funded by NASA's Astrobiology programme, suggests that the increase in the Sun's temperature may provoke solar flares that will disrupt Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere. "The atmosphere will return to a state similar to before the Great Oxidation Event, which happened about 2.4 billion years ago," explains Christopher Reinhard. Scientists propose that humanity should prepare for these changes either by developing enclosed life support systems or seeking new planets to inhabit.
Kazumi Ozaki and Christopher Reinhard developed a model of Earth on a supercomputer to simulate the climate and biochemical processes. They caution that even the most resilient organisms won't be able to live on the planet's surface then. The study employed a complex model combining biogeochemical and climate data to predict changes in the atmosphere.
