Jakarta –
It’s not just living things that have age, planets too. Even though they can last for a long time, there is no way they can live forever like a planet Earth. So, what is the scenario for the end of the world according to science?
In the latest research, the wealth of oxygen on Earth, according to scientists, is not permanent or eternal. It has happened in the past and is predicted to happen again in the future. The good news is, one of the signs of the apocalypse according to science is not going to happen in billions of years. However, if the phenomenon has appeared, the decrease in oxygen levels will take place quickly.
Around 2.4 billion years ago, a similar event was called the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). The oxygen in the atmosphere is not a perpetual ‘facility’ in a habitable world like Earth.
In his research, which has been published in the journal Nature, simulations are made with a variety of variables including geological and biological processes on Earth and most importantly, solar activity.
As the Sun gets warmer 1 billion years from now, carbon dioxide levels start to plummet as they break down to absorb heat. The ozone layer was on fire. As a result, plants that rely on CO2 will suffer and the oxygen they produce will suffer.
Within the next 10,000 years, CO2 levels were in Earth will drop so drastically that the plant is extinct. As a result, oxygen slowly runs out and living things disappear. The simulation also showed methane levels were increasing. Planet Earth will only be inhabited by bacteria.
“The reduction in oxygen will be very, very extreme. We are talking about a million times lower oxygen content than today,” said Chris Reinhard, one of the researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The sun itself is predicted to start baking Earth in another 2 billion years. But it is the predicted decrease in oxygen that will make living things suffer first. So, what is the scenario for the end of the Sun?
In about six billion years, Sun will expand to about two hundred times its current size. In this phase, our largest star will be known as the Red Giant.
Next page: fate of the Sun …
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