Question:

How long will earth last?

by Guest66164  |  earlier

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im not so sure in what i believe yet, hopefully i would find someone to show me their way

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  1. It should last about another 4 or 5 billion years before the sun expands into a red giant and burns everything up, evaporates the oceans, and blows the atmosphere away.

    There is always the chance that the passage of a star might throw the earth out of orbit.  It would still exist, but life would become impossible as temperatures approach absolute zero.  There could also be a collision with another planet-sized object.  This would most likely wipe out all life, but after the planet stabilizes again, it might start over in a billion years.  At the present time, there is no known object of that size which would be expected to come anywhere near the earth.  I believe destruction by the red giant sun is the most likely scenario.


  2. The sun will stay on the main sequence for another five billion years. Then it will become a red giant star and swallow both Mercury and Venus. The radius of Red Giant Sol will not be quite so large as 1 AU, so Earth will remain outside the sun. I think. However, since the sun's total luminous power will be much larger than than it is now, Earth will be nothing but a rock, and maybe molten rock, hotter than Mercury is now.

    Humanity will already be dead, however. The sun's luminosity is increasing at the rate of 7% per billion years, which means that about two billion years from now Earth will suffer a runaway greenhouse effect and become another Venus. The oceans will evaporate, and all life on this planet will die.

    The reason for the slow increase in solar luminosity is the depletion of hydrogen at the sun's core. As hydrogen is used up, the number density of hydrogen declines, and the rate of nuclear reactions slows down. As those reactions slow down, fewer photons emerge from the core into the sun's outer layers, which reduces the radiation pressure on those outer layers.

    Consequently, the sun contracts a bit under the pull of its own gravity. As the sun contracts, the density of the core rises, and that causes the nuclear reaction rate to rise as well, until a new balance is struck between radiation pressure and gravity. However, because the sun is slightly more compact than it was earlier, its gravitational self-attraction is a bit stronger, and so the amount of radiation pressure required for balance is a bit higher. Thus, as the sun evolves "up" the main sequence, it becomes somewhat smaller AND somewhat brighter (and, hence, higher in temperature) over the course of time.

    Now, the End of Life on Earth in 2 billion years is actually a best-case scenario. It can occur much sooner if human waste CO2 causes some kind of thermodynamic tilt, such as a release of methane hydrates, or the melting of Antarctica, or both of those.

  3. Others already answered this question....

    But humans'll be gone before 35th century. (Ask Al Gore!)

  4. Until judgment day

  5. circa 3016

  6. I don't like to think of the Earth not lasting.

    Yes it will have a rather critical event 4-5 Billion years from now when the sun expands out to the Earth's orbit.  Of course then, the atoms in the Earth will keep on going, some will wind up as part of the white dwarf that will be the remnant left over when the sun stops burning Hydrogen and Helium.  The rest, perhaps almost all, will wind up being dust spewed out into the galaxy.  That dust will be collapsed into other stars, planets, rocks, comets over time.  

    So the Earth atoms will live on for anywhere from 13 Billion years to Infinity ( if the universe keeps expanding forever ).


  7. No more than 5 billion more years which at that point is when the Sun will run out of its hydrogen fuel. It will then start running on helium fuel which burns even hotter and the Sun will increase in size from 1 to 100 AU. Mercury and Venus will both be swallowed by the Sun while Earth has two scenarios. It may stay at its current orbit where it would be incinerated for sure, or it has the slight potential of getting a widening orbit and narrowly dodging a fiery death. Either way life will be completely devoid and the Earth will be just a surface of molten rock. Eventually, everything in our galaxy will end but that is quadrillions of years after our Sun has died.

  8. It will last for about another 5 billions years because that's when the sun goes super nova.

  9. Brant stated what would happen to the life giving portion of our planet correctly but the rocky spheroid of Earth itself will possibly go on forever.  Our Sun will not explode, it will not go supernova and there are no black holes nearby to consume it.

  10. Im gonna say..

    7,042,033.891.988.310 more years

    and 4 hours 32 minutes 6 seconds

  11. No one really knows how long Earth will last.  Our planet is so complex, that scientist are not sure what will happen, a comet or meteor could hit our planet and totally wipe it out, huge volcanoes could destroy us.  But based on past things happening to our planet, we have millions of years left to enjoy.  But things do happen and it will, we just don't know.  Everyday new things are being learned about our planet that we may be able to stop things from destroying it.  We may be the ones to destroy it anyway.   That's what I think, everyone has their own thing.

  12. Well the planet itself will likely last until our sun uses up all its fuel and explodes. We are probably close enough to be completely destroyed. We got a couple billion years till that happens though. Can't be sure of the exact number but let's say around 4 or 5 billion years. You'll be long dead by then. As will any other humans still on the planet. As the sun gets near the end of its life it swells up so earth will get a lot hotter.  

  13. The world will last a whole lot longer than humanity will.  Eventually, however, the sun will run out of hydrogen to burn and begin helium burning.  At this point the sun will begin to expand, consuming Mercury and Venus and leaving the Earth a charred, inhospitable planet.

  14. The green and watery orb floating in a lazy orbit, will out last the human race by a long long time.


  15. 5 billion more years, unless something interfers with it.

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