MasHD Blog

A graduate student named Andrew Rushby from the University of East Anglia in Britain recently created two equations able to estimate how long life on Earth can continue to exist. The two equations were designed to estimate the length of time that the Earth is expected to remain within our solar system’s habitable zone. The habitable zone of the solar system is the zone where the planet is neither too close to the sun to prevent liquid water from existing nor too far from the sun to prevent liquid water from being frozen solid. According to the equations, life on Earth has only 1.75 to 3.25 billion years left. It’s definitely a huge range, and it assumes that some other catastrophe doesn’t end life on Earth before then. According to the scientists, as our sun ages it will become a larger and brighter star. As it becomes larger and hotter, the Earth will move from being firmly in the habitable zone as it is now to being too hot to support liquid water. Once the planet moves out of ...