Over time, the Sun heats up and expands, becoming more luminous and emitting more power as time goes on. As time goes on, the helium-burning region in the core expands, causing the Sun's energy output to increase. core, which is where nuclear fusion occurs. This cutaway showcases the various regions of the surface and interior of the Sun, including the. On geological and astronomical timescales, this is likely to happen sooner than later, and will be the first "end of the world" for us. Whether we have descendants that survive or not is immaterial we will go extinct on this world eventually. Whether an out-of-this-world catastrophe, like an asteroid strike, occurs or not, the demise of humanity is inevitable.
Humans themselves face pressure from a changing planet with limited resources, from other humans (in the form of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons), and from the natural world (in the form of disease). Whether those offspring of humanity millions of years from now remain sentient, as we know it, is beside the point the point is that millions of years from now, even if there are descendants of humans still around, they won't be human any longer. Based on how evolution works, it is unlikely there will be any humans left even just a few million years from now. blink-of-an-eye: under half a million years. Here's what that's going to look like.Įvolutionarily speaking, human beings - or homo sapiens - have been around for a cosmic. Based on what we know, there are four ways the Earth will meet its eventual end, and they're all going to happen someday. Yet we don't live in a world where myth and mysticism dominate our thinking we know that we can comprehend all that's to come using the predictive power of science. Some claims are very specific others are more vague. Every few years, or maybe even every few months (depending where on the internet you go), a new story, speculation, or conspiracy will go viral, claiming that the end of the world is near. Or a rogue asteroid or comet slamming into us. But the end of the Earth? That's happening even if something like this never does. This has happened to Earth before, and will no doubt happen again. A collision between two large, rocky bodies in space can be catastrophic for one or both of them.