images

Dead Earth far future

by

Don Dixon/Novapix

Reference

t-glb98-00025

Date

2013-07-28

Bilions of years hence, the sun will swell, warm, and boil away earth's oceans, transforming our once-verdant world into a desiccated wastleand. Whatever intelligent beings might exist then may gaze over the salt flats of extinct seas at a cosmic spectacle, the slow-motion collision between our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy, which will trigger a wave of star formation.