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Full Version: A billion years from now there won’t be much oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere
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https://www.universetoday.com/150750/a-b...tmosphere/

INTRO: Breathe it while you still can. A new research study forecasts the future of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and finds grim news. As the sun continues to warm, carbon dioxide will bind to rocks. This will starve plants, and in as little as a billion years they won’t be able to produce enough oxygen to keep our planet habitable (for us).

Our sun, like all stars, is steadily getting warmer. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the fusion of hydrogen in the core leaves behind inert helium, which collects there like ash in a fire pit. With helium crowding the scene, the sun has to work harder to get the hydrogen to fuse, increasing its temperature.

As the sun continues to get larger and warmer, it’s going to make life difficult on the Earth, according to new research that charts the future history of oxygen in the atmosphere of our planet. The research is accepted for publication in Nature Geoscience... (MORE)