Title: How Much Longer Can Earth Support Life? | Live Science
Headings: How Much Longer Can Earth Support Life?
How Much Longer Can Earth Support Life?
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Content: We had insects 400 million years ago, dinosaurs 300 million years ago and flowering plants 130 million years ago," lead researcher Andrew Rushby, of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "Anatomically modern humans have only been around for the last 200,000 years — so you can see it takes a really long time for intelligent life to develop." Rushby and his colleagues developed a new tool to help evaluate the amount of time available for the evolution of life on other planets: a model that predicts the time a planet would spend in its habitable zone. In the research, published today (Sept. 18) in the journal Astrobiology,they applied the model to Earth and eight other planets currently in the habitable zone, including Mars. They calculated that Earth's habitable-zone lifetime is as long as 7.79 billion years. ( Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old.) Meanwhile, the other planets had habitable-zone lifetimes ranging from 1 billion years to 54.72 billion years. "If we ever needed to move to another planet, Mars is probably our best bet," Rushby said in a statement. " It's very close and will remain in the habitable zone until the end of the sun's lifetime — 6 billion years from now."