2000002013AD - the year the world will end?
Scientists have set a new date for the end of the world - but it is not for another two billion years.
All animals and plants will vanish from the Earth, which will be inherited by
tiny microbes before life disappears completely, a new study suggests.
Ironically, Armageddon is going to arrive as a result of too little, rather
than too much, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Currently experts are trying to find ways to cut levels of the greenhouse gas
to prevent global warming running out of control.
But as the Sun ages and grows hotter, greater evaporation and chemical
reactions with rainwater will take away more and more carbon dioxide.
In less than a billion years, its levels will be too low for photosynthesising
plants to survive, say scientists. When that happens, life as we know it on
Earth will cease to exist.
With the loss of plants, herbivorous animals will also die out, as well as the
carnivores that prey on them.
Eventually microbes will be all that remains - and for the majority of them
even their days will be numbered
After another billion years, the oceans will have dried out completely leaving
only the hardiest bugs, a group of microbes called extremophiles.
"The far-future Earth will be very hostile to life by this point,"
said astrobiologist Jack O'Malley-James, from the University of St Andrews
in Scotland.
"All living things require liquid water, so any remaining life will be
restricted to pockets of liquid water, perhaps at cooler, higher altitudes
or in caves underground."
The surviving organisms would also have to cope with extreme high temperatures
and intense ultraviolet radiation, he said, and it is predicted that
eventually they too will die out.
Mr O'Malley-James made his bleak forecast at the National Astronomy Meeting
taking place at the University of St Andrews.
The predictions are based on a computer simulation of the impact long-term
changes to the Sun are likely to have on Earth.
As the Sun ages over the next billion years or so, it is expected to remain
stable but to grow steadily brighter. The increasingly intense radiation
will cause the Earth to heat up to such an extent that the oceans start to
evaporate.
The research may have implications for the search for extra-terrestrial life,
according to Mr O'Malley-James.
"When we think about what to look for in the search for life beyond Earth
our thoughts are largely constrained by life as we know it today, which
leaves behind telltale fingerprints in our atmosphere like oxygen and ozone,"
he said.
"Life in the Earth's far future will be very different to this, which
means, to detect life like this on other planets we need to search for a
whole new set of clues.
"We have now simulated a dying biosphere composed of populations of the
species that are most likely to survive to determine what types of gases
they would release to the atmosphere. By the point at which all life
disappears from the planet, we're left with a nitrogen/carbon-dioxide
atmosphere with methane being the only sign of active life".
The suggestion that there may only be two billion years left until the world
ends means a new date for apocalypse fans can be pencilled in diaries -
2000002013AD.
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