14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists at the University of East Anglia claim that, according to their investigations, it will be at least some 1.75 billion years until our planet is no longer habitable.
Provided that mankind is really lucky, life on our planet will still be possible for some 3.25 billion years to come.
Writing in the journal Astrobiology, the University of East Anglia researchers explain that, in order to determine when our planet will stop being able to support life, they looked at planets outside our solar systems.
Specifically, they analyzed their potential to host life, which depends on how close or how far to a star they happen to be situated.
Information collected in this manner allowed the researchers to estimate when planet Earth will leave the so-called habitable zone of the Sun.
“We used stellar evolution models to estimate the end of a planet’s habitable lifetime by determining when it will no longer be in the habitable zone. We estimate that Earth will cease to be habitable somewhere between 1.75 and 3.25 billion years from now,” researcher Andrew Rushby explains.
“After this point, Earth will be in the ‘hot zone’ of the sun, with temperatures so high that the seas would evaporate. We would see a catastrophic and terminal extinction event for all life,” he further details on his and his colleagues' findings.
The scientists say that, all things considered, Mars is humanity's best option for long-term survival. Thus, they maintain that, if and when mankind finds that it has no choice except leave Earth, the Red Planet is, at least for the time being, the best choice.
As Andrew Rushby puts it, “If we ever needed to move to another planet, Mars is probably our best bet. It’s very close and will remain in the habitable zone until the end of the Sun’s lifetime - six billion years from now.”