On the Closed Universe

“The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination, but the combination is locked in the safe.”

– Peter de Vries

On Stars in Space

“Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and it will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.”

– James Jeans

One Hundred Quintillion Years

Not taking into account the first 10,000,000,000 years, the following events make up a very brief overview of the next 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 years:

• [+14,400,000,000] Sun = Black Dwarf: Its temperature and luminosity will plummet, making it invisible to human eyes (not that they exist any more).
• [+20,000,000,000] The Big Rip: One potential end of the universe. All matter will be torn apart by the expansion of the universe. All distances will become infinite – not good.
• [+100,000,000,000] Local Group Merge: All local galaxies will start to merge. This process will take nearly one trillion years.
• [+150,000,000,000] Cosmic Microwave Background: The afterglow of radiation from the Big Bang will cool from -27OC to near absolute zero, making it undetectable to current technology.
• [+1,000,000,000,000] Earliest End Of Star Formation: Galaxies will have lost the gas clouds needed for star-formation. – Earliest estimate.
• [+100,000,000,000,000] Latest End Of Star Formation: Lowest estimate for the end of stellar birth. The beginning of the ‘Degenerate Era’ of universe-wide star death.
• [+110,000,000,000,000] Star’s Fuel Exhausted: All stars will have died. The only objects left are remnants: white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes.
• [+100,000,000,000,000,000,000] Earth Dies: If not consumed by a swollen Sun at 5.4 billion years, the Earth’s orbit will have finally decayed and it will plunge into the Sun.

See other: Events of the Far Future

One Hundred Million Years

Not taking into account the first 10,000,000 years, the following events make up a very brief overview of the next 100,000,000 years:

• [+50,000,000] Mediterranean Gone: Africa will collide with Eurasia, sealing off the Mediterranean Basin and creating a mountain range similar to the Himalayas.
• [+50,000,000] Antarctica Ice Melt: The Antarctic ice will travel north and melt, causing the sea levels to rise with 75 meters.
• [+50,000,000] Merging Islands: The islands of Indonesia will merge with Australia.
• [+50,000,000] Galactic Empire: At this time, the entire galaxy could probably be colonised even at sub-light speeds.
• [+60,000,000] Earth’s Orbit Unpredictable: The effects of gravity multiply over long periods, this will make orbits chaotic and impossible to predict.

See other: Events of the Far Future

One Million Years

Not taking into account the first 100,000 years, the following events make up a very brief overview of the next 1,000,000 years:

• [+296,000] Voyager 2 vs Sirius: The space probe will pass within 4.7 light years of the brightest star in the sky.
• [+500,000] Asteroid Strike: The Earth will probably have been hit by an asteroid with a +1km diameter by now.
• [+500,000] Safe Plutonium: The spent nuclear fuel in today’s reactors will be safe.
• [+500,000] New Ice Age: A new global freeze will probably have made life on Earth very difficult for a large number of organisms by now.
• [+1,000,000] Betelgeuse Explosion: The red supergiant will have exploded by now; the explosion will probably be visible in daylight.
• [+1,000,000] Monuments: Massive stone structure like the Giza pyramid or stone sculptures like Mount Rushmore may still exist – everything else we see around us today will no longer be around.
• [+1,000,000] Glass Decomposed: All glass created to date will have degraded.

See other: Events of the Far Future

Ten Million Years

Not taking into account the first 1,000,000 years, the following events make up a very brief overview of the next 10,000,000 years:

• [+1,450,000] Galactic Near Miss: The star Gliese 710 will pass about 1.1 light years from the Sun. Close enough to perturb the Oort cloud, triggering penetration of comets into the inner solar system.
• [+4,000,000] Pioneer 11: The probe will pass the Lambda Aquilea system, 125 light years from Earth.
• [+5,000,000] Men Extinct: The Y chromosome will have weakened to the point of crumbling – making men impossible.
• [+7,200,000] Mount Rushmore: Mount Rushmore will have eroded away.
• [+8,400,000] LAGEOS Re-entry: The satellite’s orbits are programmed to decay and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere carrying messages and maps to future descendents of humanity.
• [+10,000,000] New Ocean: The Red Sea will flood, dividing the continent of Africa.
• [+10,000,000] Earth Irradiated: Star T Pyxidi, 3,260 light years away goes supernova. Close enough to bathe the planet with gamma radiation, triggering mass extinctions.

See other: Events of the Far Future

One Hundred Thousand Years

Not taking into account the first 10,000 years, the following events make up a very brief overview of the next 100,000 years:

• [+13,000] Earth’s Axial Tilt Reversed: The Earth will tilt away from the Sun in June – the Northern hemisphere will experience more extreme weather due to the higher percentage of land.
• [+18,860] Calendars Concur: the Islamic and Georgian calendars will share the same year: 20,860.
• [+20,000] Chernobyl: the damaging radioactivity at Chernobyl, Ukraine will be gone.
• [+25,000] Arecibo Message: Sent on 16 November 1974, radio data from the Earth will be received by globular cluster Messier 13 at the far side of the galaxy.
• [+50,000] Greenland Ice Melted: The ice at Greenland will be completely melted with moderate global warming (+2C).
• [+50,000] KEO Time Capsule: Launched in 2014, the time capsule will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. It has enough capacity to carry a four-page message from everyone on Earth.
• [+50,000] Niagra Falls Disappears: The remaining 32 kilometres to Lake Erie will erode away and the waterfall will cease to exist.
• [+100,000] Nearby Supernova: the red giant VY Canis Majoris will likely explode into a Hypernova.
• [+100,000] Laptop Disappearing: The titanium in laptops will start to corrode.
• [+100,000] Constellations: The stars in the heavens will look completely different due to Earth’s movement through the galaxy.
• [+100,000] Global disaster: Either a supervolcano or a large climate-altering asteroid will probably have affected the Earth by then.

See other: Events of the Far Future