While, due to indeterminacy and possibly free will, 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, which studies how planets and stars 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.
These timelines begin at the start of the 4th millennium in 3001 CE, and continue until the furthest and most remote reaches of future time. They 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 and whether proton decay will be the eventual end of all matter in the universe.
Earth, the Solar System, and the universe
All projections of the future of Earth, the Solar System and the universe 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 via fusion and burn out. The Sun will likely expand sufficiently to overwhelm most of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth) but not the giant planets, including Jupiter and Saturn. Afterwards, the Sun will be reduced to the size of a white dwarf, and the outer planets and their moons will continue to orbit this diminutive solar remnant. This future situation may be similar to the white dwarf star MOA-2010-BLG-477L 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, 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 will therefore not collapse in on itself after a finite time. This infinite future could allow for the occurrence of massively improbable events, such as the formation of Boltzmann brains or spontaneous inflation triggering a new Big Bang.
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Date (CE) or Event 1,000 Due to the lunar tides decelerating the Earth's rotation, the average length of a solar day will be of an SI second longer than it is today. To compensate, either a leap second will have to be added to the end of a day multiple times during each month, or one or more consecutive leap seconds will have to be added at the end of some or all months. As Earth's poles precess, Gamma Cephei replaces Polaris as the northern pole star. 1,000 – 10,000 As one of the long-term effects of global warming, the Greenland ice sheet will have completely melted. The melt rate will depend on the amount of carbon emissions in the air. 10,000 If a failure of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin "ice plug" in the next few centuries were to endanger the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, it would take up to this long to melt completely. Sea levels would rise 3 to 4 metres. One of the potential long-term effects of global warming, this is separate from the shorter-term threat to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. 10,000 Excepting for human activity, Earth would be midway through a stable warm period with the next glacial period of the Quaternary glaciation due in 10,000 years. Taking human activities into account, the greenhouse gas emissions may disrupt this natural cycle. Carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels could cause the planet to skip glacial periods repeatedly for at least the next 500,000 years.Stephen Barker et al., Distinct roles for precession, obliquity, and eccentricity in Pleistocene 100-kyr glacial cycles. Science 387, eadp3491 (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adp3491 10,000 – 1 million The red supergiant stars Betelgeuse and Antares will likely have exploded as supernovae. For a few months, the explosions should be easily visible on Earth in daylight. As Earth's poles precess, Vega, the fifth-brightest star in the sky, becomes the northern pole star. Although Earth cycles through many different naked-eye northern pole stars, Vega is the brightest. 11,000–15,000 By this point, halfway through Earth's precessional cycle, Earth's axial tilt will be mirrored, causing summer and winter to occur on opposite sides of Earth's orbit. This means that the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere will be less extreme than they are today, as it will face away from the Sun at Earth's perihelion and towards the Sun at aphelion; the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere will be more extreme, as it experiences more pronounced seasonal variation because of a higher percentage of land. 15,000 The oscillating tilt of Earth's poles will have moved the North African Monsoon far enough north to change the climate of the Sahara back into a tropical one such as it had 5,000–10,000 years ago. 17,000 The best-guess recurrence rate for a "civilization-threatening" supervolcanic eruption large enough to eject one teratonne (one trillion tonnes) of pyroclastic material. 25,000 The northern polar ice cap of Mars could recede as the planet reaches a warming peak of its northern hemisphere during the c. 50,000-year perihelion precession aspect of its Milankovitch cycle. 36,000 The small red dwarf Ross 248 will pass within 3.024 light-years of Earth, becoming the closest star to the Sun. It will recede after about 8,000 years, making first Alpha Centauri (again) and then Gliese 445 the nearest stars (see timeline). 50,000 According to Berger and Loutre, the current interglacial period will end, sending the Earth back into a glacial period of the Quaternary glaciation, regardless of the effects of anthropogenic global warming. However, according to more recent studies in 2016, anthropogenic climate change, if left unchecked, may delay this otherwise expected glacial period by as much as an additional 50,000 years, potentially skipping it entirely.
Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 km to Lake Erie and will therefore cease to exist.
The many glacial lakes of the Canadian Shield will have been erased by post-glacial rebound and erosion. 50,000 Due to lunar tides decelerating the Earth's rotation, a day on Earth is expected to be one SI second longer than it is today. To compensate, either a leap second will have to be added to the end of every day, or the length of the day will have to be officially lengthened by one SI second. 60,000 It is possible that the current cooling trend might be interrupted by an interstadial phase (a warmer period), with the next glacial maximum of the Quaternary glaciation reached only in about 100 kyr AP. 100,000 The proper motion of stars across the celestial sphere, which results from their movement through the Milky Way, renders many of the constellations unrecognizable. 100,000 The red hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris will likely have exploded in a supernova. 100,000 Native North American earthworms, such as Megascolecidae, will have naturally spread north through the United States Upper Midwest to the Canada–United States border, recovering from the Laurentide ice sheet glaciation (38°N to 49°N), assuming a migration rate of 10 metres per year, and that a possible renewed glaciation by this time has not prevented this. (However, humans have already introduced non-native invasive earthworms of North America on a much shorter timescale, causing a shock to the regional ecosystem.) 100,000 – 10 million Cupid and Belinda, moons of Uranus, will likely have collided. 100,000 Earth will likely have undergone a supervolcanic eruption large enough to erupt of magma. 100,000 According to Berger and Loutre, the next glacial maximum of the Quaternary glaciation is expected to be the most intense, regardless of the effects of anthropogenic global warming. > 100,000 As one of the long-term effects of global warming, ten percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide will still remain in a stabilized atmosphere. 250,000 Kamaʻehuakanaloa (formerly Lōʻihi), the youngest volcano in the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, will rise above the surface of the ocean and become a new volcanic island. 300,000 At some point in the next few hundred thousand years, the Wolf–Rayet star WR 104 may explode in a supernova. There is a small chance that WR 104 is spinning fast enough to produce a gamma-ray burst (GRB), and an even smaller chance that such a GRB could pose a threat to life on Earth. 500,000 Earth will likely have been hit by an asteroid of roughly 1 km in diameter, assuming that it is not averted. 500,000 The rugged terrain of Badlands National Park in South Dakota will have eroded completely. 600,000 The estimated time until a future super-eruption of the Toba supervolcano. The most recent super-eruption occurred 75,000 years ago, triggering 6–10 years of global volcanic winter and dramatically cooling Earth for over 1,000 years. 1 million Meteor Crater, a large impact crater in Arizona considered the "freshest" of its kind, will have worn away. 1 million Desdemona and Cressida, moons of Uranus, will likely have collided.
The stellar system Eta Carinae will likely have exploded in a supernova. 1 million Earth will likely have undergone a supervolcanic eruption large enough to erupt of magma, an event comparable to the Toba supereruption 75,000 years ago. 1.29 ± 0.04 million The star Gliese 710 will pass as close as 0.051 parsecs () to the Sun before moving away. This will gravitationally perturb members of the Oort cloud, a halo of icy bodies orbiting at the edge of the Solar System, thereafter raising the likelihood of a cometary impact in the inner Solar System. 2 million The estimated time for the full recovery of coral reef ecosystems from human-caused ocean acidification if such acidification goes unchecked; the recovery of marine ecosystems after the acidification event that occurred about 65 million years ago took a similar length of time. 2 million+ The Grand Canyon will erode further, deepening slightly, but principally widening into a broad valley surrounding the Colorado River. 2.7 million The average orbital half-life of current centaurs, which are unstable because of gravitational interactions with the several outer planets. See predictions for notable centaurs. 3 million Due to tidal deceleration gradually slowing Earth's rotation, a day on Earth is expected to be one minute longer than it is today. To compensate, either a "leap minute" will have to be added to the end of every day, or the length of the day will have to be officially lengthened by one SI minute. 6 million Estimated time for comet C/1999 F1 (Catalina), one of the longest-period comets known to return to the inner Solar System, after having travelled in its orbit out to its aphelion from the Sun and back. 10 million The Red Sea will flood the widening East African Rift valley, causing a new ocean basin to divide the continent of Africa and the African plate into the newly formed Nubian plate and the Somali plate.
The Indian plate will advance into Tibet by . Nepali territory, whose boundaries are defined by the Himalayan peaks and the plains of India, will cease to exist. 10 million The estimated time for the full recovery of biodiversity after a potential Holocene extinction, if it were on the scale of the five previous major extinction events.