Life on Earth Could End In 1.75 Billion Years – Or Sooner

October 25, 2013- The Huffington Post reports on a new study that says Earth will not be habitable somewhere between 1.75 billion and 3.25 billion years from now – as long as an asteroid strike, climate change, or something else doesn’t impact the planet sooner.

“Of course, conditions for humans and other complex life will become impossible much sooner -- and this is being accelerated by anthropogenic climate change,” Andrew Rushby, a doctoral student at England's University of East Anglia and the lead author of a new study, said in a written statement

What will happen to make life impossible on our planet? According to researchers, intense heat from an aging sun will trigger evaporation of water from Earth’s oceans. Then an irreversible cycle takes place where high temperatures lead to more evaporation, which leads to more humidity, which leads to higher temperatures and more evaporation, Rushby told The Huffington Post in an email.

In a 2010 study, researchers at Purdue University and Australia's University of New South Wales found that climate change could make some areas of the Earth uninhabitable as early as 2300.

The researchers determined that Mars would be the "best bet" if humans ever seek a new place to live. One of our closest neighbors, Mars will remain in the habitable zone until our Sun dies in 6 billion years.

More information on the East Anglia research can be found in the researchers' new paper, "Habitable Zone Lifetimes of Exoplanets around Main Sequence Stars," published last week in the journal Astrobiology.

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