Earth is running out of air: NASA calculates the breakdown of oxygen

The sun is getting hotter, and the oxygen content in the Earth’s atmosphere decreases. NASA has calculated when there will be a shortage of oxygen on Earth.

Funabashi / Atlanta – Earth is doomed. And that, if not earlier through Climate change*, certainly later, because a file the sun* The oxygen supply on our planet will “burn” in the long run.

Two researchers from NASA, who now want to install their internet on the Moon by 2024*, have calculated that this is why Earth’s atmosphere containing oxygen will not last. In the distant future, scientists predict, that’s why all life in the world will be wiped out, 24hamburg.de reports *.

NASA calculations predict when the Earth will run out of air

Kazumi Ozaki of Toho University in Funabashi, Japan, and Chris Reinhard of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have modeled Earth’s climate, biological, and geological systems to predict how Earth’s weather conditions will change.

The search was conducted under a NASA* A project on habitability of planets has been implemented. “We found that Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere would not last,” Ozaki told Science Newscientist.com.

Oxygen apocalypse: the sun destroys life on Earth

The researchers estimated that within a billion years, Earth’s atmosphere would contain so little oxygen that Earth would become uninhabitable for complex aerobic life. Our atmosphere would then contain less than one percent – as opposed to the current oxygen content of about 21 percent – oxygen.

The main reason for the dramatic development: The Sun will get hotter and hotter in the future – and thus will also release more energy. Experts determined that this would lead to a significant reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as the carbon dioxide absorbs heat and then breaks down.

NASA experts: Low levels of carbon dioxide make photosynthesis impossible

Ozaki and Reinhard estimate that carbon dioxide levels in the future will be so low that photosynthetic organisms – including plants – will no longer be able to produce oxygen and will not be able to survive any longer.

The mass extinction of these photosynthetic organisms would be the main cause of the massive decrease in oxygen. At the same time, according to calculations, the methane content in the air increases ten thousand times, which increases the greenhouse effect. So it gets hotter.

NASA calculates the oxygen apocalypse: ‘The drop in oxygen is very severe’

authors Work published in the scientific journal “Nature Geoscience” Suppose the Earth’s atmosphere would initially maintain a high oxygen content before dropping dramatically to a level reminiscent of the “Great Oxygen Cataclysm” about 2.4 billion years ago: “The decrease in oxygen is very severe — we are very low,” Reinhard told newscientist.com. He’s talking about a million times less oxygen than it is today.

Once changes begin in Earth’s atmosphere, they will progress rapidly: the team’s calculations indicate that the atmosphere could then lose oxygen in just about 10,000 years.

Oxygen apocalypse: NASA researchers calculate time in the distant future

The good thing: This horror scenario is still a long way off. In contrast to the concrete threats of climate change or the potential impacts of Asteroids that change course like Apophis* or their The path as NASA recalculated the asteroid Bennu* You need to become. And who knows where humanity evaded until then.

After all, scientists have been searching for other habitable planets for years, but they may be very different from Earth. and beautiful Soon, NASA will finally be able to answer the age-old question of whether there is life on Mars*. Because samples from the next Mars mission will reach Earth by the end of 2030 at the latest. *24hamburg.de is a show of IPPEN.MEDIA

Title list image: © Robin Loznak / dpa