All life on Earth would be brought to an end – so it would be a very bad day! Luckily, events that can tear a planet in half are very, very rare. But, believe it or not, when our Solar System was young, things like that happened more often than you might think.
The Earth's lithosphere (formed by the crust and the upper part of the mantle) is broken up into a number of tectonic plates. These plates are not static, but move relative to each other at varying speeds, “gliding” over a viscous asthenosphere.
As the Earth is methodically sliced in half, its mantle and core would be exposed to the vacuum of space, causing massive earthquakes that would be felt everywhere on the planet.
A planet cannot fall out of an orbit on its own. It would take a massive collision with another planetary-sized object to break apart a planet. Some of the pieces could come out of such a collision on a trajectory that takes them out of their original orbit, though most would remain in orbit.
There's been a hypothesis floating around for a few years that there might be a ninth planet in our Solar System—and it's not Pluto. Planet Nine is unnamed, unconfirmed, and unknown. We haven't been able to detect it, and we don't even know for sure that if we did spot it, it would even be a planet.
Last remnants of geophysical life. Looking at images of the vast dry, dusty Martian landscape it is difficult to imagine that about 3.6 billion years ago Mars was very much alive, at least in a geophysical sense.
In short, the sun is getting farther away from Earth over time. On average, Earth is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun, according to NASA (opens in new tab).
Gravity on Earth
The sun's gravity keeps Earth in orbit around it, keeping us at a comfortable distance to enjoy the sun's light and warmth. It holds down our atmosphere and the air we need to breathe. Gravity is what holds our world together.
Shifting tectonic plates have been splitting the continent since the East African Rift – a 35-mile-long crack in Ethiopia's desert – emerged in 2005. Tectonic plate shifts in Ethiopia show that the African continent is splitting in two – paving the way for Earth's sixth ocean to emerge, according to researchers.
Two major sections of the continent are splitting apart, which could result in the creation of a new body of water, i.e. an ocean. It would mean that landlocked countries, such as Uganda and Zambia, could have coastlines in a few years.
Earth > Power of Plate Tectonics > Pangaea
This gigantic continent, called Pangaea , slowly broke apart and spread out to form the continents we know today. All Earth's continents were once combined in one supercontinent, Pangaea. Over millions of years, the continents drifted apart.
If Earth stopped rotating and fell to a standstill, humanity would be in trouble. If the planet stopped suddenly, everything on the surface would be destroyed, as the atmosphere, oceans and anything not nailed down kept spinning.
An Earth spinning in the opposite direction would have very different atmospheric and ocean currents. Although the global mean temperature would remain almost the same, the major ocean currents would switch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, changing the planet's climate drastically.
It is the pull of the Moon's gravity on the Earth that holds our planet in place. Without the Moon stabilising our tilt, it is possible that the Earth's tilt could vary wildly. It would move from no tilt (which means no seasons) to a large tilt (which means extreme weather and even ice ages).
Our planet's history will end as it enters the scorching outer layers of its parent star. If you take comfort in the thought that life has another five billion years ahead of it before the Earth ends, don't. Five billion years is how long the planet has left.
The earth would become warmer, the average temperature will increase. There will be several new weather patterns and the sea levels would rise. Eventually humans would die out. If the insect population continues to decline, all birds that depend on insect for food will become extinct.
Scientists predict the Sun is a little less than halfway through its lifetime and will last another 5 billion years or so before it becomes a white dwarf.
The sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth, and it's at about 3 million miles from the surface that temperatures would scorch up to above 248 degrees Fahrenheit. Relatively speaking, this is still pretty close.
If Earth's orbit moved closer to the sun, we'd all burn. If it moved farther away, we'd all freeze. Good thing we're in the sweet spot. The planet on which we live is a pretty amazing place.
Proposals for human missions to Mars have come from e.g. NASA, European Space Agency, Boeing, and SpaceX. As of 2023, only robotic landers and rovers have been on Mars. The farthest humans have been beyond Earth is the Moon, under the Apollo program.
Mars once ran red with rivers. The telltale tracks of past rivers, streams and lakes are visible today all over the planet. But about three billion years ago, they all dried up—and no one knows why.
Who knew that the red planet also glows green? Scientists in a study announced the first-ever discovery of a green glow in the atmosphere of Mars. It's also the first time such a glow has been spotted anywhere other than Earth.