Desk Report:
In the future, the world will take a terrible shape. There will come a time when it will be impossible to breathe on Earth. There will be no plants, no life will exist.
The world will become a dry, dead planet. Although it sounds like science fiction, scientists from the US space agency NASA have painted this terrible picture.
Researchers from NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (SEXSS) and Japan’s Toho University have said that about a billion years from now, there will be no oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. At that time, the Earth will no longer be habitable for any animals or humans.
Behind this destruction is our ever-familiar sun. The sun is getting hotter with time. As a result, the carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere will break down. However, this carbon dioxide is essential for plants. Because it is with it that they photosynthesise.
Therefore, plants will not survive without carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis will stop. As a result, oxygen production will stop. This one event will start a cycle of destruction. Plants will become extinct, animals will become extinct, and the earth will gradually turn into a dry and desolate planet.
A future without oxygen, where only bacteria will survive
Researchers Kazumi Ozaki (Toho University) and Christopher Reinhard (Georgia Institute of Technology) conducted large-scale experiments on how and when the earth’s atmosphere will become oxygen-free.
According to their calculations, oxygen will completely disappear from the earth in a billion years. Then only some anaerobic microorganisms will survive. Such microorganisms can live without oxygen. At that time, people, animals, birds, and plants will be destroyed. Even the ozone layer will collapse. As a result, the sun’s ultraviolet rays will come directly to the earth, making the development of life even more impossible.
With the shortage of oxygen, the amount of ‘methane gas’ in the atmosphere will increase. Methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas and will make the environment more toxic. In this situation, the air on Earth will not only be oxygen-free, but also deadly to humans.
Even if this event occurs after a billion years, its signs or symptoms may be seen ‘thousands of years’ in advance.
The biggest message of this study is that the Earth is ‘not habitable forever’. It teaches us that no planet is eternal, and the delicate balance required for survival is fragile and temporary.
So this information is not only a prediction for the distant future, but also a message for us today. Responsibility for our planet, respect for nature and long-term environmental awareness can be a gift for future generations.
Source: Leravi
