Here, Earth can be seen from six billion miles away as Voyager 1 leaves the Solar System.Īfter 50,000 years, assuming we can curb anthropogenic (human-based) global warming, the current interglacial is scheduled to end, throwing the Earth back into an ice age. Voyager 1 is perhaps most famous for taking the photo on the right, the Pale Blue Dot, at Carl Sagan’s behest. Moving at a velocity of 61,400 kilometers per hour (38,200mph), it takes Voyager 1 about 14,000 years to travel a single light year. Looking a bit further out, in 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will retain the title of “farthest man-made object from Earth” and pass within 1.6 light years of AC+79 3888 (a star) - unless, of course, humanity develops a faster propulsion system before then. In 13,000 years, our axial precession will mean that Vega (a very bright star indeed!) becomes the North Star. In 10,000 years, the Gregorian calendar will be 10 days out of sync with the sun’s position in the sky (and thus the seasons) - this is delightfully ironic, as the Gregorian calendar was originally implemented to fix a 10-day slippage caused by the Julian calendar. For example, in 8,000 years, thanks to the Earth’s slowly shifting axial precession, Deneb will replace Polaris as the North Star. It is theorized that a handful of subatomic particles will bounce around for a few more gazillion years (until 10 10 120), lose what energy they have left, and the universe will eventually decay into its final energy state - death.īut we’re getting ahead of ourselves! The timeline of the near far future is much more interesting, because our progeny might actually live to see it. After 10 100 years these black holes will evaporate and we will enter the Dark Era, where the universe will contain almost no matter at all. In “just” 10 40 years (10 followed by 40 zeroes), the universe will enter the Black Hole Era, with almost all the matter in the universe forming black holes. Long before the ultimate fate of the universe, though, all forms of life will cease to exist. This is a vast, vast number that you or I can’t even begin to comprehend it’s 1, followed by 10 120 zeroes. There are a few conflicting theories on what will happen to the universe in the long term, but the most likely theory - continued expansion until heat death occurs - is calculated to happen in 10 10 120 years. The universe is 14 billion years old, the Earth is four billion years old, and Homo sapiens, humans, have existed for around 200,000 years. The humbling, absolute truth is that human history makes up the tiniest of fraction of the universe’s history - and when you consider that the universe itself, at 14 billion years old, is still in its infancy, well… we don’t really have words to describe the utter flash-in-the-pan unimportance of humanity.
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