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how long do we have left on earth before the sun becomes to warm? i've heard as much as 1.5 billion years, and as soon as 500 million years?

8 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    2 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    It's believed that by another 500 million years, the Earth will be somewhat warmer than now, because the sun will have expanded and become a bit hotter. It may be that the Earth will be a worldwide hot jungle and oceans.

    As for human life, well, we've been in this recognisable form for less than 100,000 years. So in another 500 million years, apart from having developed technology for interstellar travel, we will probably have evolved into a completely different form. It's a long time. 500 million years before now, widespread life had really only just begun in the Earth's oceans. Think of what's come and gone since then. And it ain't just dinosaurs.

    By 1.2 billion years, the oceans will be gone. The sun will be nowhere near red giant stage, but it will be bigger and hotter again. Another few hundred mill after that, any record that there was ever a biosphere will have melted and recrystallised.

    There's still a few billions of years to go after that, but it won't worry us. If our descendants are elsewhere in the galaxy, I doubt there'd be any record of where things began. They'll probably look at our distant bloated and dying red giant in their telescopes, or a white dwarf with a planetary nebula, and wonder if it ever had planets around it. Assuming they haven't evolved into creatures of energy able to roam the galaxy at will.

    Source(s): An interesting article in Sky & Telescope a few years back.
  • Joe B.
    Lv 6
    2 years ago

    I've always heard about 4 billion years (don't remember without actually looking it up). In any case, it's much longer than 500 million or 1.5 billion years.

  • 2 years ago

    In about 1 billion years, the surface of Earth will become too hot for liquid water to exist.

  • Athena
    Lv 7
    2 years ago

    Longer than 2 billion years,

    but I would start packing Monday.

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  • mokrie
    Lv 7
    2 years ago

    millions or billions--what does it matter? You won't be here but another 70 years at the very most.

  • 2 years ago

    At least a million times longer than even the most rationally optimistic estimate for the remaining longevity of global civilization.

    So you need not worry about it.

  • 2 years ago

    Comfortable temps for large animals like whales, elephants, and on down to humans, chimps, aardvarks, shrews are on the rise now. In only one to two hundred years, many species will be out of habitat and food. Might include humans, or at least most humans.

    Read the Club of Rome reports that show their predictions for last 40 years and our near future are and could be accurate.

    A billion years warmup might not matter if none are around to document that after 2100 or so.

    Source(s): Ask your grandchildren what they expect living conditions for them could be like.
  • 2 years ago

    When I was in college (long time ago) I learned that the sun would expand bigger and bigger as it ran out of fuel and eventually envelop the earth. The earth would go 'Pffft' and that would be it. This was supposed to happen in about a billion years. But now I read that it's more like 5 billion years! I feel better! That'll give me time to pack up my stuff and find a new planet.

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