Retaining Earth's Habitability Beyond the Life of the Sun
Abstract
The Earth is rare and large-scale interstellar travel may be unfeasible - instead of migrating to other solar systems, future civilisations on Earth may have to remain. However, left unchecked, the Earth's current habitability will end in one billion years. This paper investigates and conceptualises a set of megaengineering concepts required to safeguard against seven long-term threats to Earth's habitability: solar luminosity, solar engulfment, the end of tectonics, water loss, obliquity and rotation, object collision, and extra-system threats. Implementing and maintaining the set of safeguards would allow the Earth to remain habitable for 9.1 quadrillion years. This could be raised to nonillions of years via capturing interloping interstellar medium onto Jupiter. Compared with alternatives, advantages of the safeguards such as greater feasibility, lower requisite rate of energy production, and utilisation of economically viable space mining infrastructure may present remaining on Earth as a more attractive long-term survival strategy.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{harry2026retaining,
title = {{Retaining Earth's Habitability Beyond the Life of the Sun}},
author = {Gabriel Harry},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.13084},
eprint = {2607.13084},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.13084},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Retaining Earth's Habitability Beyond the Life of the Sun
AU - Gabriel Harry
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.13084
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.13084
AB - The Earth is rare and large-scale interstellar travel may be unfeasible - instead of migrating to other solar systems, future civilisations on Earth may have to remain. However, left unchecked, the Earth's current habitability will end in one billion years. This paper investigates and conceptualises a set of megaengineering concepts required to safeguard against seven long-term threats to Earth's habitability: solar luminosity, solar engulfment, the end of tectonics, water loss, obliquity and rotation, object collision, and extra-system threats. Implementing and maintaining the set of safeguards would allow the Earth to remain habitable for 9.1 quadrillion years. This could be raised to nonillions of years via capturing interloping interstellar medium onto Jupiter. Compared with alternatives, advantages of the safeguards such as greater feasibility, lower requisite rate of energy production, and utilisation of economically viable space mining infrastructure may present remaining on Earth as a more attractive long-term survival strategy.
ER -