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A study conducted by scientists from NASA and Toho University in Japan used a supercomputer to predict how long we have before Earth becomes uninhabitable. So now, perhaps, we have some idea of how long we have to find a new planet to call home.
There have an untold number of predictions about when the world will end, almost all of them have been far-fetched, exceedingly speculative, or outright wrong. Now, however, with ever more technologically advanced supercomputer simulations, it isn’t so unreasonable to think we can make a general prediction about such things.
Current predictions say the Sun has about five billion more years before it dies. Earth, on the other hand, will becomes uninhabitable well before that happens. And, yes, it has a lot to do with the Sun.
“For many years, the lifespan of Earth’s biosphere has been discussed based on the steady brightening of the Sun,” said Kazumi Ozaki, lead author of the study.
That brightening will, over time, lead to more and more solar radiation reaching Earth. That radiation will, in turn, create shifts in Earth’s climate that will make it no longer possible to support life.
According to the supercomputer simulations conducted by the scientists in the study, it is predicted that by the year 1,000,002,021 (that’s one billion, two thousand and twenty-one), Earth will become so hot that the oceans will evaporate, the atmosphere will thin, oxygen levels will be drastically reduced, and essential resources will disappear, leading to the point where life simply can no longer exist.
Of course, depending on how humans behave, that number could be reduced or increased. As Daily Galaxy explains, “With the ongoing effects of human-driven climate change, including deforestation, pollution, and rising fossil fuel consumption, oxygen levels are expected to decline even sooner. These atmospheric changes, in combination with the Sun’s gradual brightening, will lead to a scenario where only the hardiest organisms, like certain types of bacteria, might be able to survive.”
Another possible way the Sun will lead to the end of Earth as we know it
Back in 2021, Dr. Mark Morris, a professor of astronomy at UCLA, also states that the end of the world as we know it has a very good chance of being caused by the Sun, but with a slightly different twist.
“There’s every expectation that in about five billion more years, that our Sun will swell up to become a red giant,” Morris explained.
“And then, as it gets larger and larger, it will eventually become what’s called an asymptotic giant branch star – a star whose radius is just under the distance between the Sun and the Earth – one astronomical unit in size. So the Earth will be literally skimming the surface of the red giant sun when it’s an asymptotic giant branch star.”