How long until the earth dies?

But not all of the science it features is junk. Some researchers really do think that Earth's magnetic field deflects ionising particles from the sun, which would otherwise wear away Earth's atmosphere. If they are right, then without a magnetic field our planet will lose its atmosphere too, and all life will die. read more

The good news is that impacts on the scale of the dinosaur killer are rare. Such big rocks may only strike Earth once every 500 million years. But even if one does come along, mass extinction is unlikely to become mass sterilisation. That would probably only be possible if Earth was hit by something even bigger than an asteroid: a rogue planet. read more

This would be totally disastrous for local flora and fauna, but all life on the surface of the Earth will already be long gone. In fact, we have less than a billion years to enjoy the surface of our planet before it becomes inhospitable. read more

The whole process of turning into a red giant will take about 5 million years, a relative blip in the sun's lifetime. [50 Interesting Facts About Earth] On the bright side, the sun's luminosity is increasing by a factor of about 10 percent every billion years. read more