Future Events
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- Introduction
- The Near Future: present day–9999
- The Post-Human Era: 10,000–599,999,999
- The Post-Earth Era: 600,000,000–99,999,999,999,999
- The Mature Universe: 100,000,000,000,000+
DISCLAIMER: This timeline won’t necessarily reflect what you’re used to in your history books, your literature, your films, your television shows or your comic books. Because this is what really happened...
Introduction
The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves. Nevertheless, there are certain events that have happened repeatedly across multiple alternate, parallel universes. And there are certain prognosticators whose track records at predicting specific phenomena are nearly infallible. Therefore, while the events below are not yet set in stone, and the final details may diverge somewhat, they do provide a road map for where we are likely headed.
Also, keep in mind that there is a remote possibility of a Multiverse-Ending Event (MEE) at any point. They could take the form of anything from the Rapture (probably a good thing) to the return of the Anti-Monitor (probably a bad thing). But since they are simply impossible to predict, there is just no sense in worrying about them here.
The Near Future
2017
In September, Albus Potter, Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy will begin their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
2018
NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble.
2019
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) will complete the process of merging nearly all of South America (with the exception of a couple of small, European territories) into a single economic market.
2020
Former Batman Bruce Thomas Wayne (age 74) will have a heart attack. Following this, he will decide to retire the Batman legacy, and no one will fill the mantle for the next two decades.
The Avengers roster in this year will likely consist of some of the following heroes: Wasp (chairperson Hope Pym, age 45), Hulkling (Teddy Altman, age 47 in Earth years), Falcon (Sam Wilson, Jr., age 46), Iron Man (Tony Stark, Jr., age 43), War Machine (John Rhodes, age 40), Prodigy (David Alleyne, age 31), Speed (Tommy Shepherd, age 31), Wiccan (Billy Kaplan, age 31), Hawkeye (Kate Bishop, age 30), Black Panther (Shuri of Wakanda, age 29), Squirrel Girl (Doreen Green, age 29), Miss America (America Chavez, age 28), Nova (Sam Alexander, age 24), Spider-Man (Miles Morales, age 22), Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan, age 20), the Vision and Thor.
The Justice League roster in this year will likely consist of some of the following heroes: chairperson Atom (Ray Palmer, Jr., age 44), Miss Martian (M’gann M’orzz, age 62 in Earth years), Static (Virgil Hawkins, age 42), Green Arrow (Connor Hawke, age 39), the Flash (Bart Allen, age 38), Booster Gold (Michael John Carter of Earth-Tetra, age 33), Batgirl (Carrie Kelley, age 32), Aquaman (Orin, age 31), Blue Beetle (Jamie Reyes, age 29), Black Canary (Sara Lance, age 26), Superman (Clark Kal-El Kent II, age 26) and Wonder Woman (Diana II of Themyscira, age 25). Simon Baz (age 29), a Green Lantern of Sector 2814, will most likely be an honorary member.
2021
Greenland will become an independent nation.
2025
By this year, the population of planet Earth is expected to reach 8.1 billion people.
According to common belief about how the curse of the Iron Fist works, Danny Rand will die again on or before this year, the 33rd year after he was revived for his “second life” in 1992.
2029
The Rip Hunter of Earth-Tetra will turn 19. (It will be the year 2484 in his universe.) At this point, it is likely that he will inherit from his father the role of the interdimensional costumed hero Booster Gold.
2030
The Eobard Thawne of Earth-Tetra will turn 21. It will be the year 2485 in his universe, and at this point, if history is any indication, he may become an interdimensional traveler, as his counterparts from Earth-Hexa and Earth-Penta did, and visit our own universe.
2040
In Boston, 17-year-old Terry McGinnis (b. August 18, 2023) will debut as the new Batman, the first to wear the cape and cowl in 20 years. Meanwhile, his mentor, Bruce Thomas Wayne (age 94) will suffer his second heart attack.
The Avengers roster in this year will likely consist of some of the following heroes: chairperson Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan, age 40), Nova (Sam Alexander, age 44), Spider-Man (Miles Morales, age 42), Danielle Cage (age 35), Black Panther (T’Chana of Wakanda, age 34), Daredevil (Jack Donovan, age 31), Iron Man (Howard Anthony Stark, age 27), Vision and Thor.
The Justice League roster in this year will likely consist of some of the following heroes: chairperson Black Canary (Sara Lance, age 46), Superman (Clark Kal-El Kent II, age 46 in Earth years), Wonder Woman (Diana II of Themyscira, age 45), Hawkwoman (age 33), Booster Gold (Ripley Carter from Earth-Tetra, age 30), Hawkman (age 30), Aquawoman (Mareena, age 20) and the Flash (Danica Williams, age 14). Kai-Ro (age 8), a Green Lantern of Sector 2814, will be an honorary member.2041
Batman (Terry McGinnis, age 18) will join the Justice League.
2042
By this year, the population of planet Earth is expected to reach 9 billion people.
2043
Bruce Thomas Wayne (age 97) will suffer his third heart attack, which will kill him. Former Batgirl Carrie Kelley (age 55) will become his heir and the new mentor of the current Batman, Terry McGinnis (age 20).
2044
Including children, minorities in the U.S. will now outnumber white citizens.
2050
By this year, the population of planet Earth is expected to reach 9.6 billion people.
2052
The United States will become a majority-minority nation, as voting-eligible minorities will now outnumber whites.
2061
In July, Halley’s Comet will next return to its closest approach to the Sun.
2063
The first human warp flight will take place, attracting the attention of the Vulcans, who will make their first contact with humans on April 5.
2073
This will be the next convergence of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven.
2080
By this year, the population of planet Earth is expected to reach 10 billion people. Soon after this, the population will stabilize and even begin to decline somewhat.
2099
In New York City, the Miguel O’Hara of our universe (b. 2069) will be working as a genetic researcher wt this time, and is likely to become our next Spider-Man .
2156
The Earth-Romulan War will begin.
2160
The Earth-Romulan War will end in a stalemate. The treaty ending the war will establish a neutral zone one light year wide between their territories.
2161
The United Federation of Planets will be founded by the governments of planets Andoria, Earth, Tellar and Vulcan.
2230
Spock, the son of the Vulcan ambassador Sarek and the human Amanda Grayson, will be born on planet Vulcan.
2265
James Tiberius Kirk (b. 2233) will captain the starship Enterprise as it begins its historic five-year mission.
2270
James Tiberius Kirk (age 37) will be promoted to admiral upon his return as the starship Enterprise completes its historic five-year mission.
2273
Calling itself “V’Ger,” the Voyager 6 space probe will return to Earth as a sentient being.
2300
Around this time, the Voyager 1 spacecraft will just have reached the inner boundary of the Oort cloud, the faint halo of debris around the Solar System that is the source of all long-period comets.
2315
The planet Krypton will be destroyed in the alternate, parallel Earth-Sigma universe (a.k.a. the “Marvel 1602” universe), where it will now be the year 1914.
2363
The new USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) will be launched under the command of Jean-Luc Picard, becoming the Federation’s new flagship.
2387
A supernova will destroy the planet Romulus.
2439
The Eobard Thawne of our universe will acquire Speed Force powers and become the new Professor Zoom.
2462
The Michael Jon Carter of our universe (b. 2442) will likely obtain 30th century technology at this time and use it to travel to a parallel, alternate universe where it is still the 20th or 21st century, so that he can become a superhero there. (One possibility is the Earth-Sigma, or “Marvel 1602” universe, where it will now be the year 2061.)
2900
Around this time, the Legion of Super Heroes will be founded in San Francisco, California on planet Earth.
2929
Our universe’s version of Nathaniel Richards (a.k.a. Kang the Conqueror in some universes) will discover the means of traveling between dimensions, and will have to choose whether or not to aid his other selves in trying to conquer the Multiverse.
3921
If “Those Who Sit Above in Shadow” somehow survived and the cycle of Dagor Dagorath is still active, this will be the year of the next Ragnorök for the Asgardians.
6314
Our universe’s version of Citizen Abra will discover the secret of traveling between parallel universes and will become an interdimensional criminal.
The planet Krypton will be destroyed in the alternate, parallel Earth-E universe (the universe where Kang the Conqueror ruled ancient Egypt as Rama Tut), where it will now be the year 1914.
The Post-Human Era
12,000
Thanks to advances in technology, humanity as we understand it today will have become unrecognizable by this time.
13,727
Earth’s axial precession will make Vega the northern pole star.
20,346
Earth’s axial precession will make Thuban the northern pole star.
22,000
The areas left deserted by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster will again become safe for human life around this time.
27,800
Earth’s axial precession will again make Polaris the northern pole star.
30,000
Around this time, the Voyager 1 spacecraft will finally pass through the outer boundary of the Oort cloud and exit the Solar System.
38,000
The small red dwarf star Ross 248 will pass within 3.024 light years, becoming the closest star to the Sun.
42,000
At this time, the Voyager 1 spacecraft will pass within 1.6 light years (15 trillion km) of the red dwarf star Gliese 445. This will be the closest approach of any \space probe launched thus far to any currently known star.
50,000
Because of the drag of the moon on the rotation of the Earth, the length of the day will have increased at this time by about one second compared to today, to 24 hours and 1 second per day.
The current interglacial period is expected to end, sending the Earth back into a glacial period of the current ice age, regardless of the effects human-induced climate change.
100,000
Because the stars are in motion, none of the constellations we know today will remain recognizable at this point in time.
250,000
Lō’ihi, the youngest volcano in the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, will have risen above the surface of the ocean and become a new volcanic island.
1,000,000
The descendants of humanity will have colonized most of the Milky Way galaxy.
Many of today’s public monuments will have eroded into unrecognizability without maintenance, including the Great Pyramid of Giza.
1,400,000
The star Gliese 710 will pass 1.1 light years from the Sun, gravitationally perturbing the Oort cloud and increasing the likelihood of a cometary impact in the inner Solar System.
2,000,000
The descendants of humanity will have evolved into multiple subspecies by this time.
3,000,000
Because of the drag of the moon on the rotation of the Earth, the length of the day will have increased at this time by about one minute compared to today, to 24 hours and 1 minute per day.
5,000,000
At this point, following another ice age, ice sheets will extend as far south as Paris in the northern hemisphere and as far north as Buenos Aires in the southern hemisphere. The Amazon rainforest will have dried up and become grassland. The North American plains will have become cold desert, and Africa will have collided with Europe, enclosing the Mediterranean Sea. Without water to replace it in the dry climate, the Mediterranean will have dried out into a salt flat dotted with brine lakes. Most of Europe will be frozen tundra. The part of Africa east of the African Rift Valley will have broken away from the rest of the continent. Asia will have dried up and will now be mountainous. The once warm, tropical area of Central America will have been transformed into a dry area. Australia will have moved north and collided with eastern Indonesia. Meanwhile, giant sea-birds will roam the beaches and carnivorous bats will rule the skies. [The Future Is Wild]
7,800,000
All ties that the descendants of humanity once had to humans will have been erased.
8,000,000
The moon Phobos will come within 7,000 km of Mars, at which point tidal forces will cause it to disintegrate into a ring of orbiting debris that will continue to spiral in toward the planet for the next three million years.
10,000,000
The widening East African Rift valley will be flooded by the Red Sea, creating a new ocean basin to divide the continent of Africa.
11,000,000
The ring of debris around Mars caused by the disintegration of the moon Phobos will collide with the surface of the planet.
50,000,000
The Californian coast will begin to be subducted into the Aleutian Trench due to its northward movement along the San Andreas Fault.
Africa's collision with Eurasia will close the Mediterranean Basin and create a mountain range similar to the Himalayas.
In North America, the Appalachian Mountain peaks will have largely eroded away. The Canadian Rockies will have eroded away to a plain, while the Southern Rockies will weather at a somewhat slower rate.
The descendants of humanity will have colonized and terraformed the entire Milky Way galaxy.
80,000,000
Hawaii’s “Big Island” will sink beneath the ocean, the last of the current Hawaiian Islands to do so.
100,000,000
On Earth, the successors of humanity will by now have been replaced by successors of their own, most likely biological and / or technological descendants of some kind.
At this point, Earth will be much hotter than at present. Octopuses and enormous tortoises will have come onto the land, much of which will be flooded by shallow seas surrounded by brackish swamps. Antarctica will have drifted toward the tropics and will be covered with dense rain forests. Australia will have collided with North America and Asia, forcing up an enormous, 12-kilometer (7.5 mile) high mountain plateau—much taller than the modern Himalayas. Greenland will have been reduced to a small, temperate island. There will be cold, deep ocean trenches. The Sahara will once again be the rich grassland it was millions of years ago. [The Future Is Wild]
180,000,000
Because of the drag of the moon on the rotation of the Earth, the length of the day will have increased at this time by about one hour compared to today, to 25 hours.
240,000,000
The Solar System will have completed one full orbit of the Galactic Center from its current position.
249,000,000
At this point, Earth will be recovering from a mass extinction caused by a flood basalt eruption even larger than the one that created the Siberian Traps, wiping out 99% of the species on the planet. All the continents will have collided with one another and fused into a single supercontinent, a Pangaea Ultima. One large global ocean with a single-current system will give rise to deadly hurricanes called hypercanes, which batter the coastlines of the continent all year long. The northwestern side of Pangaea Ultima, drenched with an endless supply of rain, will have become a temperate forest. Mountains resting at the end of the coast prevent most of the rain’s moisture from reaching a long line of scrubby rainshadow deserts. The very center of the continent will receive no rain at all and will become a barren, plantless desert. Only fish, arthropods, worms and mollusks will naturally be left to repopulate the Earth. Fish will take to the skies, squid to the forests, and the world’s largest-ever desert will be filled with strange worms and insects. [The Future Is Wild]
360,000,000
Because of the drag of the moon on the rotation of the Earth, the length of the day will have increased at this time by about two hours compared to today, to 26 hours.
The Post-Earth Era
600,000,000
The Sun’s increasing luminosity will begin to disrupt the carbonate–silicate cycle, causing plate tectonics to slow, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to fall, and making photosynthesis impossible for 99% of the vegetation that exists on Earth today.
720,000,000
Because of the drag of the moon on the rotation of the Earth, the length of the day will have increased at this time by about three hours compared to today, to 27 hours.
800,000,000
By this point, the continued decrease in carbon dioxide levels will make photosynthesis impossible. Free oxygen and ozone will disappear from the atmosphere and multicellular life on Earth will die out.
1,000,000,000
The Sun’s luminosity will have increased 10% from today’s level, causing Earth’s atmosphere to become a “moist greenhouse,” resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. Pockets of water may still be present at the poles, allowing abodes for simple cellular life.
However, by this time the orbit of Earth may have been shifted by an astroengineering project to compensate for the Sun’s increased brightness, in which case the Earth may still be habitable.
1,500,000,000
The Sun’s habitable zone will have moved outward. The surface temperature on Mars at this time will be akin to Earth during the ice age.
2,300,000,000
By this time, the Earth’s outer core will freeze, causing its magnetic field shuts down. If an artificial magnetic field is not introduced, this in turn will allow charged particles from the Sun to gradually deplete the atmosphere.
2,800,000,000
By this point, if the Earth has not been relocated, all life will have died out due to the increased luminosity of the Sun.
3,000,000,000
The Moon’s increasing distance from the Earth will lessens its stabilizing effect on Earth’s axial tilt, causing Earth’s polar wander to become chaotic and extreme. (Again, astroengineering may assuage this effect.)
3,500,000,000
If Earth remains in its current orbit, surface conditions will have become comparable to those on Venus today.
4,000,000,000
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will begin to collide. Because galaxies are mostly empty space, it is extremely unlikely that any stars will collide. However, some stars may be ejected as the galaxies merge.
4,800,000,000
The Sun will have exhausted its core hydrogen and will expand into a subgiant phase, slowly doubling in size over the next half billion years.
5,400,000,000
The Sun will exit the main sequence stage of its lifecycle and begin rapidly expanding into a red giant.
7,900,000,000
By this point, the Sun will have swelled to its maximum size of over 256 times its current diameter. Mercury and Venus will have already been vaporized by this point. If Earth has not already been moved by astroengineering, it would likely experience a natural bump to an orbit 30% more distant than today, allowing it to survive being enveloped, but it would be scorched in this orbit. Saturn’s moon Titan might be in the Sun’s expanded habitable zone at this point.
8,000,000,000
At this point, the Sun will have shrunk into a dense, carbon-oxygen white dwarf star with about 54 percent its present mass but only the diameter of the Earth. As a stellar remnant, the Sun would generate almost no energy, leaving all of its remaining planets outside of any kind of habitable zone.
However, even as a white dwarf star the Sun would have a small habitable zone, and using future astroengineering technology it would be possible to move the Earth (sans the Moon) into this zone. If this were done, the Earth would need to orbit at a distance of only about 0.01 AU (1.5 million km, or about four times the current distance of the Moon). At this distance, each revolution around the Sun would take only 12 hours. Because the Sun would be so much smaller, it wouldn't appear any larger in the sky than it does today, but it's close proximity would make the Earth tidally locked, so that one side always faces the Sun. Again, however, astroengineering could be used to change this, perhaps maintaining both a protective magnetic field and something close to a 24-hour day.
50,000,000,000
If still paired at this point, the Earth and Moon would become tidally locked, with each showing only one face to the other. At this point, the length of a day on either will be equal to about 47 current Earth days.
100,000,000,000
Thanks to the ever-expanding universe, we will no longer be able to detect any galaxies beyond our Local Group.
150,000,000,000
At this point, the cosmic microwave background radiation will have cooled to a point where it will be undetectable.
450,000,000,000
By this point, the 47 galaxies of the Local Group will have all coalesced into a single large galaxy.
The Mature Universe
100,000,000,000,000
The Stelliferous Era will end as there will no longer be any free hydrogen left in the universe from which to form new stars. This marks the beginning of the Degenerate Era.
120,000,000,000,000
All of the stars in the universe will have exhausted their fuel and died. After this point, only stellar remnants (white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes) and brown dwarfs will remain.
1,000,000,000,000,000
The remnant of our Sun will have cooled to just five degrees above absolute zero.
100,000,000,000,000,000,000
By this point, gravitational interactions will have caused over 90% of all brown dwarfs and stellar remnants to have been ejected from galaxies.
Earth’s orbit will have decayed to the point that it will plunge into the black dwarf that used to be our Sun (if it has not been ejected from the Solar System prior to this).
30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
The end of the Degenerate Era and the beginning of the Black Hole Era, in which black holes are the only naturally remaining celestial objects in the universe.
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
The end of the Black Hole Era and the beginning of the Dark Era, in which all matter has decomposed and there is nothing left in our universe but faint radiation.
10 ^ 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Note that at this point, the universe will still have existed for only an infinitesimal fraction of its total lifespan. It will exist up to 10 ^ 1,000,000 times as long (that’s a one with a million zeroes after it) as a completely dark, empty and lifeless void before a new universe is created in a new “Big Bang.”
10 ^ 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Estimated occurrence of the next “Big Bang” event, creating a new universe.
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