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Oxygen disappears: Researchers explain when life on earth is no longer possible in the distant past

2021-03-25T12:52:28.615Z


Climate change is eating away at the earth. But we can still live on it. How much longer - researchers have now found out.


Climate change is eating away at the earth.

But we can still live on it.

How much longer - researchers have now found out.

Munich - no life without oxygen.

Humans, like all living things, are part of this simple calculation, which boils down to a final end point that researchers have now predicted.

Fortunately, we still have time until that happens: According to research by NASA, it will take another billion years to get there.

Global warming: the heat of the sun increases - animals and people are dying out

But then the sun is primarily responsible for the fact that we can no longer live on earth, much more so than we are in the current climate change discussion, which is about a few degrees Celsius: “Our” star reaches the next Phase of its life cycle and becomes significantly hotter.

So hot that the oxygen almost completely disappears.

The oxygen content of the atmosphere then drops to a millionth of the current level, neither photosynthesis of plants is possible, nor complex life like that of animals or humans.

The process itself should - if it is so far in a billion years - then go relatively quickly and only last about 10,000 years, as researchers from the USA and Japan have discovered.

At the same time, the methane in the atmosphere increases ten thousand times.

Global warming: the ozone layer has completely disappeared - only bacteria survive in the shade

The ozone layer is therefore completely dissolved by the extreme solar radiation, which means that there is no longer any possibility for life on earth to protect itself from UV radiation and heat.

Life in water, on earth and in the air is dying out, all that remains is anaerobic life forms (which do not need oxygen) and primitive bacteria that survive in the shade.

The researchers' study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, was part of research by Dr.

Chris Reinhard (Georgia Tech) and Dr.

Kazumi Ozaki (University of Tokyo), who were commissioned by NASA to find out how life on other planets could be possible - which, if their study is to be believed, is an inescapable goal for humans if they want to survive.

List of rubric lists: © dpa / Matthias Toedt

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-03-25

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