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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 22 January 2025. Scientific projections regarding the far future Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see List of numbers and List of years. Artist's concept of the Earth 5–7.5 billion years from now, when the Sun has become a red giant While the future cannot be predicted with certainty ...
Sometime in the next 1.5–4.5 billion years, Earth's axial tilt may begin to undergo chaotic variations, with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90°. [11] The luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, causing a rise in the solar radiation reaching Earth and resulting in a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals.
Earth formed in this manner about 4.54 billion years ago (with an uncertainty of 1%) [25] [26] [4] and was largely completed within 10–20 million years. [27] In June 2023, scientists reported evidence that the planet Earth may have formed in just three million years, much faster than the 10−100 million years thought earlier.
c. 2.0–1.5 Ma – The basin of the Congo River acquires its present shape. c. 1.9 Ma – Oldest known Homo erectus fossils. This species might be evolved some time before, up to c. 2 Ma ago. c. 1.7 Ma – Australopithecines go extinct. c. 1.8–0.8 Ma – colonisation of Eurasia by Homo erectus.
The Earth's magnetic field was established 3.5 billion years ago. The solar wind flux was about 100 times the value of the modern Sun , so the presence of the magnetic field helped prevent the planet's atmosphere from being stripped away, which is what probably happened to the atmosphere of Mars .
Boltwood did the legwork and by the end of 1905 had provided dates for 26 separate rock samples, ranging from 92 to 570 million years. He did not publish these results, which was fortunate because they were flawed by measurement errors and poor estimates of the half-life of radium. Boltwood refined his work and finally published the results in ...
As a result, each month now represents 1 of 12 billion years of the Earth's life. According to this calendar, the first life appears in January, and the first animals first appeared in May, with the present day taking place on May 18. Even though the Sun won't destroy Earth until December 31, all animals will die out by the end of May.
The book also illustrates Earth's eventual fate by compressing its full 12 billion-year history into 12 hours on a clock, with the first life appearing at 1:00 am, the first animals and plants appearing at 4:00 am, and the present day being 4:29.59 am. The Earth is destroyed by the Sun at "high noon", though animals and plants come to an end by ...