33 Things That Will Happen To Earth In The Next Trillion Years According To Scientists

If a failure of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin "ice plug" in the next few centuries were to endanger the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, it will take up to this long to melt completely. Sea levels would rise 3 to 4 meters. (One of the potential long-term effects of global warming, this is separate from the shorter term threat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.)

According to one estimate called the Doomsday argument, as proposed by Australian theoretical physicist Brandon Carter, there's a 95 percent chance that humans will have died out in 10,000 years. That argument has been heavily debated, so we're not entirely sure if people will be around or not. But if they are, in 10,000 years there will be no regional genetic variation between humans. That's not to say people will all look the same, but whatever genetic differences there are - such as blue eyes versus brown - will be evenly distributed across the planet.

By this point, halfway through the precessional cycle, Earth's axial tilt will be reversed, causing summer and winter to occur on opposite sides of Earth's orbit. This means that the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere, which experiences more pronounced seasonal variation due to a higher percentage of land, will be even more extreme, as it will be facing towards the Sun at Earth's perihelion and away from the Sun at aphelion.

According to the Sahara pump theory, the precession of Earth's poles will move the North African Monsoon far enough north to convert the Sahara back into a tropical climate, as it was during 5,000–10,000 years ago.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the 2,600-square-kilometre (1,000 sq mi) area of Ukraine and Belarus left deserted by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, becomes safe for human life.

The small red dwarf Ross 248 will pass within 3.024 light-years of Earth, becoming the closest star to the Sun. It will recede after about 8,000 years, making first Alpha Centauri again and then Gliese 445 the nearest stars.

Niagara Falls will have eroded away the remaining 32 km to Lake Erie, and ceased to exist.

According to Berger and Loutre, the current interglacial period ends sending the Earth back into a glacial period of the current ice age, regardless of the effects of anthropogenic global warming.

The many glacial lakes of the Canadian Shield will have been erased by post-glacial rebound and erosion.

The length of the day used for astronomical timekeeping reaches about 86,401 SI seconds, due to lunar tides decelerating the Earth's rotation. Under the present-day timekeeping system, either a leap second would need to be added to the clock every single day, or else by then, in order to compensate, the length of the day would have had to have been officially lengthened by one SI second.

The hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris will likely have exploded in a hypernova.

The proper motion of stars across the celestial sphere, which is the result of their movement through the Milky Way, renders many of the constellations unrecognisable. Earth will likely have undergone a supervolcanic eruption large enough to erupt 400 km3 (96 cubic miles) of magma. For comparison, Lake Erie is 484 km3 (116 cu mi).

As one of the long-term effects of global warming, 10% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide will still remain in a stabilized atmosphere. (100,000+)

Due to "proper motion," or the long-term movement of celestial bodies through space, familiar star constellations like the Big Dipper, Orion and Perseus no longer exist.

250,000 Loihi, a young submarine volcano in the Hawaiian chain, rises above the Pacific Ocean's surface and becomes a new island.

295,000 Voyager 2 vs Sirius probe passes within 4.7 light years of the brightest star in the night sky.

At some point in the next "several" hundred thousand years, the Wolf–Rayet star WR 104 is expected to explode in a supernova. It has been suggested that it may produce a gamma-ray burst that could pose a threat to life on Earth should its poles be aligned 12° or lower towards Earth. The star's axis of rotation has yet to be determined with certainty.

Earth will likely have been hit by an asteroid of roughly 1 km in diameter, assuming it cannot be averted.

The spent nuclear fuel in today's reactors will finally be safe.

The rugged terrain of Badlands National Park in South Dakota will have eroded away completely.

Final date we can hold off a new global freeze until - if we burn all remaining fossil fuels.

Earth will likely have undergone a supervolcanic eruption large enough to erupt 3,200 km3 (770 cubic miles) of magma, an event comparable to the Toba supereruption 75,000 years ago.

Highest estimated time until the red supergiant star Betelgeuse explodes in a supernova. The explosion is expected to be easily visible in daylight. It may explode in as little as 100,000 years, depending on the evolutionary model.

All glass created to date will have finally degraded. Massive stone structures like Giza or sculptures at Mount Rushmore may still exist. Everything else gone.

Desdemona and Cressida, moons of Uranus, will likely have collided.

Estimated time for the recovery of coral reef ecosystems from human-caused ocean acidification; a similar time was taken for the recovery of marine ecosystems after the acidification event that occurred about 65 million years ago .

The Grand Canyon will erode further, deepening slightly, but principally widening into a broad valley surrounding the Colorado River.

2.7 million, Average orbital half-life of current centaurs, that are unstable because of gravitational interaction of the several outer planets.

The widening East African Rift valley is flooded by the Red Sea, causing a new ocean basin to divide the continent of Africa and the African Plate into the newly formed Nubian Plate and the Somali Plate.

Estimated time for full recovery of biodiversity after a potential Holocene extinction, if it were on the scale of the five previous major extinction events.

Even without a mass extinction, by this time most current species will have disappeared through the background extinction rate, with many clades gradually evolving into new forms.

Maximum estimated time before the moon Phobos collides with Mars.

According to Christopher R. Scotese, the movement of the San Andreas Fault will cause the current locations of Los Angeles and San Francisco to merge.
The Californian coast will begin to be subducted into the Aleutian Trench.

Africa's collision with Eurasia closes the Mediterranean Basin and creates a mountain range similar to the Himalayas.

The Appalachian Mountains peaks will largely erode away, weathering at 5.7 Bubnoff units, although topography will actually rise as regional valleys deepen at twice this rate.

Upper estimate for lifespan of the rings of Saturn in their current state.

Earth will likely have been hit by an asteroid comparable in size to the one that triggered the K–Pg extinction 66 million years ago, assuming it cannot be averted.

All the continents on Earth may fuse into a supercontinent. Three potential arrangements of this configuration have been dubbed Amasia, Novopangaea, and Pangaea Ultima.

Due to the northward movement of the West Coast of North America, the coast of California will collide with Alaska.

The solar system will have completed one entire revolution around the Milky Way.

The Sun's rising luminosity begins to disrupt the carbonate–silicate cycle; higher luminosity raises weathering of surface rocks, which traps carbon dioxide in the ground as carbonate. Volcanoes will continue to pump carbon dioxide for at least the next 1.1 billion years.However, the long term trend is for the carbon dioxide level to steadily drop.

By this time, carbon dioxide levels will fall to the point at which C3 photosynthesis used by trees is no longer possible. By this point, forests will no longer be able to survive, causing a mega mass extinction of the Earth's vegetation.

Tidal acceleration moves the Moon far enough from Earth that total solar eclipses are no longer possible.

Carbon dioxide levels fall to the point at which C4 photosynthesis is no longer possible. Without plant life to recycle oxygen in the atmosphere, free oxygen and the ozone layer will disappear from the atmosphere allowing for intense levels of deadly UV light to reach the surface. However, in their book The Life and Death of Planet Earth, authors Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee stated that some animal life may be able to survive in the oceans. However, due to a lessening of organic matter and oxygen in the water,animal life would die off there too. By this time all multicellular life will die out. The only life left on the Earth after this will be single celled bacteria.

The Sun's luminosity has risen by 10%, causing Earth's surface temperatures to reach an average of c. 320 K (47 °C; 116 °F). The atmosphere will become a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As water evaporates from the Earth's surface, rocks harden, causing plate tectonics to slow and eventually stop. Pockets of liquid water may still be present at the poles or at high elevations, allowing small areas where life can survive.

1.3 Billion, Eukaryotic life dies out on Earth due to carbon dioxide starvation. Only prokaryotes remain.

1.5 to 1.6 Billion, The Sun's rising luminosity causes its circumstellar habitable zone to move outwards; as carbon dioxide rises in Mars's atmosphere, its surface temperature rises to levels akin to Earth during the ice age.

The Earth's outer core freezes, if the inner core continues to grow at its current rate of 1 mm per year. Without its liquid outer core, the Earth's magnetic field shuts down, and charged particles emanating from the Sun gradually deplete the atmosphere.

Earth's surface temperature, even at the poles, reaches an average of c. 422 K (149 °C; 300 °F). At this point, all life, now reduced to unicellular colonies in isolated, scattered micro-environments such as high-altitude lakes or subsurface caves, will go extinct.