I was reading a book by a writer of "Scientific America" and he mentioned that the all plant life would die but he never mentioned WHY this would happen and completely disregarded the fact. Answers?
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This actually is a rather realistic number, as unfortunate as it may be.
The cause of this is the stellar behavior of the sun. Like all stars of its type, they go through a gradual warming stage during their main sequence. Our sun is no exception.
We and all life on Earth are lucky to live during the time when the sun yields Earth's temperature to be in the liquid water range. Eventually, the sun will warm so much that it renders Earth no longer within its habitable zone. The oceans will boil away, the atmosphere will be stripped away by solar winds, the blood and cytoplasm of all organisms will literally boil, and it will be curtains for life on Earth.
This is nothing at which humans are at fault. This is entirely based on what will naturally happen, even if there weren't ever a humanity on this planet.
When you think about life originating 3.5 billion years ago, 900 million years from now is a rather significant fraction of the total 4.4 billion years that life is expected to survive in total.
On the scale of a human's age, placing abiogenesis at birth, and placing curtains for life on Earth at death...this makes the present era scale-model-equivalent to roughly a 65 year old man, should he be living to a typical death age of eighty.
Earth itself will still exist, so it won't literally be the end of the world. Just the end of life on Earth. Earth itself will still be a planet, it just will more closely resemble a "hot Mars" than our familiar cosmic oasis as it is today.
The cause of this is the stellar behavior of the sun. Like all stars of its type, they go through a gradual warming stage during their main sequence. Our sun is no exception.
We and all life on Earth are lucky to live during the time when the sun yields Earth's temperature to be in the liquid water range. Eventually, the sun will warm so much that it renders Earth no longer within its habitable zone. The oceans will boil away, the atmosphere will be stripped away by solar winds, the blood and cytoplasm of all organisms will literally boil, and it will be curtains for life on Earth.
This is nothing at which humans are at fault. This is entirely based on what will naturally happen, even if there weren't ever a humanity on this planet.
When you think about life originating 3.5 billion years ago, 900 million years from now is a rather significant fraction of the total 4.4 billion years that life is expected to survive in total.
On the scale of a human's age, placing abiogenesis at birth, and placing curtains for life on Earth at death...this makes the present era scale-model-equivalent to roughly a 65 year old man, should he be living to a typical death age of eighty.
Earth itself will still exist, so it won't literally be the end of the world. Just the end of life on Earth. Earth itself will still be a planet, it just will more closely resemble a "hot Mars" than our familiar cosmic oasis as it is today.
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Most likely due to losing the Ozone Layer. Life didn't even come to land until we developed the Ozone layer. Everything before that was killed by Solar radiation getting through the atmosphere and stopping cells from thriving by destroying their ability to divide and stay alive. In the next 900 million years the continents will collide at least once, maybe twice. This will also release tremendous amounts of Carbon Dioxide and other green house gasses. When the Continents collide, this stops the north/south ocean currents from flowing and starts a new Ice Age. Also, the land in the Center of the new Supercontinent will NEVER get rain since it will be around 10,000 miles from the nearest seas and oceans, making it the driest places on earth. Life will be brutual except along a bit of the coastlines. The entire Earth is a living organism, just like our bodies, this organism called Gaia. The Earth will almost be 5.5 Billion years old in 900,000,000 years and is expected to live to about 8 Billion years old (when the Sun will swallow it when it changes to a Red Supergiant). However, that means the earth is a little over 1/2 way through its life and like all living things, it can't live forever in perfect health.