Let's say that one calendar year represents the entire history of the Earth. Midnight on January 1st is the formation of Earth and 365 days later is the present day. So where along the calendar do you think humans will appear in the Earth's history?
The very first signs of Life appear on February 26th and the dinosaurs went extinct on Christmas day. Now humans, we don't appear until 10:50 pm on New Year's Eve. We have existed for 70 minutes out of the entire year.
Now my point is that humans as a species are extremely young when compared to the age of the Earth or even worse the age of the universe. So let's look to the future. What exciting or even scary events will you miss?
In 2004, scientists observed a potentially hazardous asteroid named Apophis and concluded that there was a 2. 7% chance that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029. An asteroid more than a thousand feet across fields its way toward the Earth right now.
This asteroid is big enough that it could flatten an entire city so it caused a lot of fear among the general public. As we observed it more and more to try and refine our model it became clear that our calculations were actually wrong and there is no risk that Apophis will actually hit Earth within the next Century. On April 13th, 2029 Apophis will actually pass less than 32,000 kilometers from our planet's surface.
This is closer than many of our satellites and significantly closer than our moon. It is a close call but we'll be okay. In 1986, the world witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history, a meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl.
This event saw radioactive debris and fuel decimate the surrounding environment and as a result the area was isolated. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is now over 1,000 square miles of uninhabited land that is guarded to prevent people from harm. Now because the event was so damaging, scientists currently estimate that the zone around the reactor will not become habitable again until around the year 22,000.
In the year 40,000, the Voyager space probes will finally pass by another star. These spacecraft were launched back in the 1970s on a journey to leave our solar system and on their way out they made some of the first observations of the outer planets. Now as of right now the Voyager 1 spacecraft is the furthest man-made object from Earth and even though it has been traveling for the last 50 years it is still just 22 light hours away from Earth.
If there is an alien civilization living near the star as the Voyager 1 probe passes, they might be able to detect it and pick it up. If they do manage to track it down they will find the golden record, a collection of images, sounds, and music sent from Earth to tell our story. It also has a pulsar map on the cover that the aliens could use to find the Earth.
Roughly every 300,000 years, the Earth's magnetic field completely flips. North becomes South and vice versa. But it seems like we are overdue for a pole reversal.
The last one took place around 780,000 years ago so sometime in the next few thousand years we can expect to see the Earth's magnetic field flip. This could put us in danger, making us more susceptible to geomagnetic storms raising our chances of suffering from Global power outages. When a massive star reaches the end of its life and has no more fuel to use it cools off causing the star to collapse in on itself in just a few seconds.
This sends shock waves throughout the entire galaxy and this is known as a supernova. There are a number of stars that we can see in our night sky that are getting close to the end. More specifically, there are these two red giants that are ready to go very soon.
Antares and Betelgeuse. They are both expected to go supernova sometime in the next million years, it could technically happen tomorrow so maybe you won't miss it but more than likely you'll be long gone for you ever get to experience it. Now when these stars do eventually go supernova it will be a truly magical sight to see.
The afterglow of the supernova will appear brighter than the full moon in the sky for more than three months. It will be so bright that you will actually be able to see it during the day. Now while you probably won't get to see one in your lifetime others throughout history have actually been so fortunate.
In 1604 the German astronomer Johannes Kepler noticed a bright Supernova appear in the night sky. He actually thought that he was looking at a new star being born when in reality he was just looking at a supernova. In 1969, man landed on the moon for the first time.
And we left our mark both figuratively and literally. The famous footprints were left there stamped into the lunar surface. Now unlike on Earth there is no wind and no water on the moon to cause the footprints to disappear however after around 10 million years the very first footprints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin will finally fade away as a result of micrometeorite impacts.
In 100 million years from now, Saturn will no longer have its iconic rings. These icy rocks are being pulled into Saturn by a process known as ring rain. Now our current estimates show that around 10 tons of these rocks fall into the gas giant every single second.
We are really quite lucky that we get to exist in the relatively small window of time where we get to see Saturn in all of its beautiful glory with its rings. But don't be too sad, while Saturn will eventually lose its rings another planet will actually form new rings. In around 40 million years, Mars' gravity will break apart its closest Moon Phobos.
These fragments will distribute throughout the sky forming new rings around Mars. Earlier this year, NASA's Mars Rover perseverance captured this beautiful footage of Phobos eclipsing the sun on the red planet. Now in the future this obviously won't happen because Phobos will be gone so hopefully humans on Mars get to witness it with their own eyes before it's too late.
66 million years ago a 10 kilometer wide asteroid struck the Gulf of Mexico which resulted in the death of the Dinosaurs. According to our best simulations, events like this are expected to occur once every 250 million years. So over the next 180 million years if we are still around of course we will probably suffer a similar fate unless we've developed technology that can protect the Earth by then.
Gamma Ray Bursts are the most violent explosions in the universe. They are made during the formation of a black hole. Now while they last just a few seconds, gamma-ray bursts emit as much energy as our sun will emit during its entire 10 billion year existence.
They are mean. A GRB within the Milky Way would cause unbelievable damage to Earth's biosphere. Our best models show that a dangerously near GRB should occur at least once every 500 million years and what's worse this has happened in the past.
. . We think that 440 million years ago, a GRB was triggered near the Earth that struck our atmosphere converting nitrogen and oxygen into nitrogen dioxide.
This caused these skies to turn dark and the planet was forced into an ice age. This event caused the death of more than 100 families of marine animals it was the second most devastating mass extinction in our planet's history and sometime in the next 500 million years we will be hit again. Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is on a direct Collision Course with our Galactic neighbor Andromeda.
We are currently 2. 5 million light years away from each other but in four and a half billion years we will collide sending stars and planets into chaos. This will form a new galaxy named Milkdromeda.
The supermassive black holes at the hearts of both galaxies will meet and begin a cosmic dance, eventually colliding and releasing more energy than every single star in the observable universe combined. Now I know this sounds scary, but I think the night sky will be worth all the stress. Every night will look like something out of a Hollywood film.
In two billion years we will see the disc of Andromeda approaching us. In 3. 75 billion years Andromeda will be clearly visible in our night sky.
Then just 100 million years later the sky will be filled with bright lights coming from baby stars being born. Now four billion years from now Andromeda will become tidally stretched and the Milky Way will become warped. Wouldn't it be amazing to see with your own two eyes?
Every single year the moon moves about two inches further away from the Earth. This actually causes our rotation to slow down and I know that two inches might not seem like much but over billions of years it definitely adds up. You see when the Earth was just a little baby planet, each day was actually five hours long.
But as the moon has edged further and further away over the last four and a half billion years, the Earth's rotation has slowed so much that each day is now 24 hours long. If the moon continues to edge away at this rate, in four and a half billion years each day on Earth will be around 43 hours long. Let's just hope that your boss only expects you to work eight of them.
Stars each have limited lifetimes and one day our Sun will die. When the fuel in its heart runs out in around 5 billion years it's all over. There will be no more hydrogen left to fuse in the core, the gravitational forces will then take over compressing the core and allowing the sun to expand.
The sun will become massive, so large that it will consume all of the inner, rocky planets including Earth. By then the Sun will officially be a red giant and it will stay like this for a billion years. By then all of the hydrogen in the outer core will deplete leaving behind mostly helium.
Now all of this helium will fuse into heavier elements which will cause the sun to shrink down into a white dwarf star just the size of the Earth. It will then just stay there slowly cooling down over billions of years. Now we are really looking deep into the future, in 100 trillion years from now all star formation will end.
There will be no more hydrogen fuel to consume and the universe will only be populated by black holes, white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, and neutron stars. This is the Degenerate Era. The universe will be cold and dark and it will continue to get even colder over time.
It is possible that some planets will remain in orbit around these stellar remnants and if they maintain significant amounts of internal heat they might even be able to continue sustaining life in some form. Any remaining civilizations will be orbiting in darkness waiting for the final Lights of the universe to go out. The white dwarfs and the neutron stars will eventually die through a process known as proton decay.
Now when this happens all that will be left in the universe are black holes. This is the Black Hole Era and it will begin trillions and trillions of years from now. Past this we aren't really sure what's going to happen although I would place my bets that humans won't be around to see it unless of course the multiverse theories turn out to be true.
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