Earthed - How much longer is the earth expected to be able to support life?

How much longer is the earth expected to be able to support life?

At some point in the very distant future the earth will no longer be able to support human, plant and animal life. When will this be and what is expected to happen to the earth once it can no longer support life?

Public Comments

4 more years until 2012, December 21
It might not be all that far in the future if we don't do something to reverse global warming. But even if we do manage to wipe ourselves out, there's no way we could exterminate all life on Earth, even if we tried. Life will always survive somewhere - deep under the ocean in vents, or far under the ice of the Arctic. Eventually, it will come back.

The Earth will be destroyed when the Sun expands into a red giant star in about 5 billion years.
5 billion year when the sun dies

The earth will be part of the sun because the sun will expand to mars then collapse into a white drawf
i think we should be worried more about Y2K10 all the computers will blowup and airplanes will fall from the sky
The present forecast is that Earth can support life for another 5 Billion Years. At that time the Sun will have consumed all of its available Hydrogen Gas and begin consuming Helium in its internal fusion process. When that occurs, the sun will also expand in size something like four or five times its present size. That will increase the heat on Earth to levels that will be intolerable for all living things and change Earth into something that looks rather like Mars looks right now.

Mercury and Venus will be consumed by the Sun, and there is some possibility that Earth might be consumed also...hard to tell.
Well, if you meant any life at all, the sun is expected to expand to a point where it will be larger than earths current orbit in something like 4 billion years (If I remember correctly), one would assume life will be gone sometime before that, I don't know, maybe 2 or 3 billion years from now?

But then you complicate the issue by saying "support humans" humans are quite fragile compared to things like bacteria, a good asteroid impact could probably get rid of the humans any day. Here you get into statistics, but I suppose a few million years is about the most you could hope for, a big difference from billions of years.
lol at the 2012 answer

ignoring the 2012 doomsday theory, the Earth could supposedley last for billions of years.

If mankind keeps taking advantage of it, though, it might end a lot sooner (global warming, pollution, pesticides for growing food, etc). It all comes down to how much we do to help it keep providing for us.

Cutting down on electricity use, and not wasting water would help. Also, eating organic food helps, because they dont use harmful pesticeds and other chemicals.
well some people beilive it will end in 2012 but there arent really good facts to support there idea except maybey but the mayan calendar maybey its all a coinicdence, btw the earth can go on forever just as long we dont pollute as much cause all the carbon dioxide will e sucked down to earth, also energy is finding new ways to be created and new ways to save electricity are in the process of being created
As I said in your other question, 5 billion years. I don't believe anything less than the expansion of the sun will wipe out all life on earth. Global warming will not even begin to compare to previous changes to the earth's climate, so that will not even be a major blip in the cycles of warming and cooling the earth undergoes.

Once the sun does expand, life will become intolerable on the earth, and it will eventually become a burnt out husk, with no atmosphere, probably tidally locked with the enlarged sun. Think of Mercury today. Hot and dead.
ya know whats gonna inhabit the world right?

large mutant bunnies

ever Night of the Lepus?

that is a scary reality
I heard that it'll be burnt to crisps in about 6.5 billion years because then the sun will turn into a red giant and blow it up. But we might be able to move to MARS!!! (My Home Planet) ; p But yea, you have to watch global warming too, so then after going green is a way of life, we can work on moving to MARS!!! Anyone??
1. 2012

2. 5 billion years from now when the sun turns into a red giant
15 more minutes then, Mr. Scott is supposed to beam the rest of us to a more tolerable atomosphere, probably Perseus Eye-Eight.

Oh, did I mention, they are only going to beam up those 25 years old and under, the rest of you are a lost cause.

Good Luck, anyway!

;- )
The Earth will support us for as long as God intends before He purges and renovates this one into a "new" earth. I do agree that it won't be, or can't be long

Isaiah 65:17 ¶For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

Isaiah 66:22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

11 ¶Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.