Timeline of the far future
[1][2][3][4] These fields include astrophysics, which studies how planets and stars form, interact and die; particle physics, which has revealed how matter behaves at the smallest scales; evolutionary biology, which studies how life evolves over time; plate tectonics, which shows how continents shift over millennia; and sociology, which examines how human societies and cultures evolve.
These timelines begin at the start of the 4th millennium in 3001 CE, and continue until the furthest and most remote reaches of future time.
They include alternative future events that address unresolved scientific questions, such as whether humans will become extinct, whether the Earth survives when the Sun expands to become a red giant and whether proton decay will be the eventual end of all matter in the universe.
Keys All projections of the future of Earth, the Solar System and the universe must account for the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy, or a loss of the energy available to do work, must rise over time.
Afterwards, the Sun will be reduced to the size of a white dwarf, and the outer planets and their moons will continue to orbit this diminutive solar remnant.
[6][7][8] Long after the death of the Solar System, physicists expect that matter itself will eventually disintegrate under the influence of radioactive decay, as even the most stable materials break apart into subatomic particles.
[11] However, according to more recent studies in 2016, anthropogenic climate change, if left unchecked, may delay this otherwise expected glacial period by as much as an additional 50,000 years, potentially skipping it entirely.
[53][54] Africa's collision with Eurasia will close the Mediterranean Basin and create a mountain range similar to the Himalayas.
[60] The Appalachian Mountains peaks will have largely worn away,[61] weathering at 5.7 Bubnoff units, although topography will actually rise as regional valleys deepen at twice this rate.
[158] Estimated lifespan of the HD-Rosetta analog disc—an ion beam-etched writing medium on nickel plate, a technology developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and later commercialized.
[186] On the Moon, Neil Armstrong's "one small step" footprint at Tranquility Base will erode by this time, along with those left by all twelve Apollo moonwalkers, due to the accumulated effects of space weathering.
The LAGEOS satellites' orbits will decay, and they will re-enter Earth's atmosphere, carrying with them a message to any far future descendants of humanity and a map of the continents as they are expected to appear then.
[195] Estimated time for an astroengineering project to alter the Earth's orbit, compensating for the Sun's increasing brightness and outward migration of the habitable zone, accomplished by repeated asteroid gravity assists.
