Earth Might Lose Oxygen In One Billion Years
Oxygen wasn’t in our atmosphere since the very start. And new simulations show that it will not last forever either. As the Sun will become more active it will destroy plant life on Earth and thus oxygen will disappear.
Image by Tilgnerpictures from Pixabay
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When our planet was born roughly 4.5 billion years ago it had an atmosphere made mostly from hydrogen and its compounds. During the later period of Earth being bombarded by asteroids – 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago – the second version of Earth’s atmosphere got created that included most nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and some inert gases. Then about 2 billion years ago the evolution of photosynthetic organisms alongside tectonic processes create version three of Earth’s atmosphere that is known for its high levels of oxygen.
The oxygen atmosphere lasts until today though it has changed a bit. The amount of oxygen varied between 15 percent in the Paleozoic period and 30 percent in the Permian period. But research shows that this won’t last forever. Kazumi Ozaki from Toho University and Christopher Reinhard from the NASA Nexus for Exoplanet System Science predicts that unless current trends will change in about 1 billion years Earth will lose its oxygen atmosphere and the Sun will be to blame.
The researchers simulated the increase of solar radiation and what that will do to climatic, geological, and biological processes on Earth. They let the simulation go far into the future and the results show that in about 1 billion years the Sun will be producing so much radiation that the amount of carbon dioxide will decrease as its molecules will absorb so much energy from the solar radiation that they will break up. And at the same time, the solar radiation will burn up the ozone layer.
The decrease in carbon dioxide levels and the destruction of the ozone layer will have a serious impact on plant life on the surface. This will lead to a decrease in photosynthetic oxygen production. Once the radiation levels go over a certain threshold it the carbon dioxide levels will decrease so rapidly that plant life will go extinct in just 10,000 years. And with no plants there will be no oxygen and thus no oxygen-based life.
This would very obviously lead to a planet without animals or plants. Maybe some microscopic anaerobic organisms could survive. Luckily, this is not a problem our current generation has to concern itself with. On top of that, the simulations did not take evolution into account. The plants and animals could evolve to battle this. And lastly, if humanity (or some other intelligent species) it could change the environment through planetary or even stellar engineering.
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