While the future cannot be predicted with certainty, present understanding in various scientific fields allows for the prediction of some far-future events, if only in the broadest outline. These fields include

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

, which studies how planets and

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

s 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. The far future begins after the current millennium comes to an end, starting with the 4th millennium in 3001 CE, until the furthest reaches of future time. These timelines 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 A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around or ...

and whether proton decay will be the eventual end of all matter in the Universe.

Lists

Keys

Earth, the Solar System, and the Universe

All projections of the future of Earth, the Solar System, and

the universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Ac ...

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. Stars will eventually exhaust their supply of hydrogen fuel and burn out. The Sun will likely expand sufficiently to overwhelm many of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, possibly Earth), but not the giant planets, including Jupiter and Saturn. Afterwards, the Sun would be reduced to the size of a white dwarf, and the outer planets and their moons would continue orbiting this diminutive solar remnant. This future situation may be similar to the white dwarf star

MOA-2010-BLG-477L MOA-2010-BLG-477L is a star whose existence was detected when it caused a microlensing event in August, 2010. The microlensing event also revealed the existence of a planet orbiting the star. At first the star was thought to be about 0.67 ...

and the Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbiting it. Long after the death of the solar system, physicists expect that matter itself will eventually disintegrate under the influence of

radioactive decay Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...

, as even the most stable materials break apart into subatomic particles. Current data suggest that the universe has a flat geometry (or very close to flat), and thus will not collapse in on itself after a finite time. This infinite future allows for the occurrence of even massively improbable events, such as the formation of Boltzmann brains.

Humanity and human constructs

To date five spacecraft ('' Voyager 1'', '' Voyager 2'', '' Pioneer 10'', ''

Pioneer 11 ''Pioneer 11'' (also known as ''Pioneer G'') is a robotic space probe launched by NASA on April 5, 1973, to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn, solar winds, and cosmic rays. It was the first probe to encounter ...

'' and ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...

'') are on trajectories which will take them out of the Solar System and into interstellar space. Barring an extremely unlikely collision with some object, the craft should persist indefinitely.

Graphical timelines

For graphical, logarithmic timelines of these events see: *

Graphical timeline of the universe This more than 20-billion-year timeline of our universe shows the best estimates of major events from the universe's beginning to anticipated future events. Zero on the scale is the present day. A large step on the scale is one billion years; a s ...

(to 8 billion years from now) * Graphical timeline of the Stelliferous Era (to 10²⁰ years from now) * Graphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death (to 10¹⁰⁰⁰ years from now)

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * {{featured list *