When will the world end? What science says
Not soon. Scientists expect Earth to stay habitable for roughly another 1 billion years, until the slowly brightening Sun boils away the oceans. In about 5 billion years the Sun will swell into a red giant. No known asteroid is on course to hit Earth in the next century.
Key facts
| Earth too hot for oceans | In about 1 billion years |
|---|---|
| Sun becomes a red giant | In about 5 billion years |
| Sun becomes a white dwarf | In about 8 billion years |
| Large asteroid impact risk, next 100 years | No known threat |
| Closest upcoming asteroid flyby | Apophis, April 13, 2029 (will miss) |
| Doomsday Clock (symbolic) | 85 seconds to midnight |
The real timeline, according to science
| When (from now) | What happens |
|---|---|
| About 1 billion years | The Sun has brightened enough to boil away Earth's oceans; complex life ends |
| About 4.5 billion years | The Andromeda galaxy may collide with the Milky Way (a 2025 study puts the chance at about 50% within 10 billion years) |
| About 5 billion years | The Sun runs out of hydrogen in its core and swells into a red giant, probably swallowing Mercury, Venus and possibly Earth |
| About 8 billion years | The Sun shrinks into a white dwarf about the size of Earth |
| 100 trillion years | The last stars stop forming and burn out |
| 10100 years or more | Black holes evaporate; the universe approaches "heat death", cold and dark |
The Sun gets about 10% brighter every billion years. That slow brightening, not a sudden event, is what will make Earth uninhabitable. On a human scale a billion years is unimaginably long: if all of it were one day, the whole of recorded history would take less than half a second.
What about asteroids?
Astronomers have found more than 90% of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 kilometre, the size that could cause global devastation, and none is on course to hit Earth in the next 100 years. The asteroid Apophis will pass very close, closer than some satellites, on April 13, 2029, but it will miss. In 2022 NASA's DART mission showed that a spacecraft can nudge an asteroid off course.
Predicted ends of the world that didn't happen
People have predicted the end many times. The year 1000, the Millerites' 1844 "Great Disappointment", Halley's Comet in 1910, the Y2K bug in 2000, Harold Camping's May 21, 2011, and the "Mayan apocalypse" of December 21, 2012 (which was just the end of a long cycle in the Maya calendar) all passed quietly.
What about the Doomsday Clock?
The Doomsday Clock, now at 85 seconds to midnight, is a warning about human-made risks such as nuclear war and climate change, not a prediction of a date. Unlike the Sun's future, those risks are ones people can reduce.
For perspective, see how old the Earth is and the whole of its history on the Earth history clock.
Questions people ask
When will the world end?
Not for a very long time. In about 1 billion years the Sun will be bright enough to boil away the oceans, and in about 5 billion years it will become a red giant. No known asteroid will hit Earth in the next 100 years.
Will the Sun swallow the Earth?
Possibly. When the Sun becomes a red giant in about 5 billion years it will expand past the orbits of Mercury and Venus. Whether it reaches Earth depends on how much mass the Sun loses, which makes the planet's orbit widen.
Is the world going to end in 2026?
No. There is no scientific reason to expect the world to end this year or anytime soon. Repeated end-of-the-world predictions have always failed.
Will an asteroid hit Earth?
Small ones hit all the time and burn up. For large ones, no known asteroid is on a collision course for at least the next century. Apophis will pass close on April 13, 2029 but will miss.
How will the universe end?
Most likely in a "heat death": it keeps expanding and cooling until stars burn out and black holes evaporate, after trillions upon trillions of years. Other ideas include a Big Rip or a Big Crunch.
Last updated October 23, 2026.