Query: Our evolving dynamic planet has survived[…] mass extinctions

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Earth <=SEP=> Earth ( from Eorðe -LSB- Γαῖα , Gaia -RSB- Terra ) , otherwise known as the World or the Globe , is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life . It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets .   According to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence , Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago . Earth 's gravity interacts with other objects in space , especially the Sun and the Moon , Earth 's only natural satellite . During one orbit around the Sun , Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times ; thus , an Earth year is about 365.26 days long . Earth 's axis of rotation is tilted , producing seasonal variations on the planet 's surface . The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides , stabilizes the Earth 's orientation on its axis , and gradually slows its rotation .   Earth 's lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years . About 71 % of Earth 's surface is covered with water , mostly by its oceans . The remaining 29 % is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes , rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere . The majority of Earth 's polar regions are covered in ice , including the Antarctic ice sheet and the sea ice of the Arctic ice pack . Earth 's interior remains active with a solid iron inner core , a liquid outer core that generates the Earth 's magnetic field , and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics .   Within the first billion years of Earth 's history , life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earth 's atmosphere and surface , leading to the proliferation of aerobic and anaerobic organisms . Some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago . Since then , the combination of Earth 's distance from the Sun , physical properties , and geological history have allowed life to evolve and thrive . In the history of the Earth , biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion , occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events . Over 99 % of all species that ever lived on Earth are extinct . Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely ; most species have not been described . Over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival . Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures ; politically , the world has about 200 sovereign states .

Future of Earth <=SEP=> The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based upon the estimated effects of several long-term influences . These include the chemistry at Earth 's surface , the rate of cooling of the planet 's interior , the gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System , and a steady increase in the Sun 's luminosity . An uncertain factor in this extrapolation is the ongoing influence of technology introduced by humans , such as climate engineering , which could cause significant changes to the planet . The current Holocene extinction is being caused by technology and the effects may last for up to five million years . In turn , technology may result in the extinction of humanity , leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes .   Over time intervals of hundreds of millions of years , random celestial events pose a global risk to the biosphere , which can result in mass extinctions . These include impacts by comets or asteroids with diameters of 5 -- or more , and the possibility of a massive stellar explosion , called a supernova , within a 100-light-year radius of the Sun , called a Near-Earth supernova . Other large-scale geological events are more predictable . If the long-term effects of global warming are disregarded , Milankovitch theory predicts that the planet will continue to undergo glacial periods at least until the Quaternary glaciation comes to an end . These periods are caused by variations in eccentricity , axial tilt , and precession of the Earth 's orbit . As part of the ongoing supercontinent cycle , plate tectonics will probably result in a supercontinent in 250 -- 350 million years . Some time in the next 1.5 -- 4.5 billion years , the axial tilt of the Earth may begin to undergo chaotic variations , with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90 ° .   During the next four billion years , the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase , resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth . This will result in a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals , which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere . In about 600 million years from now , the level of CO2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees . Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method , allowing them to persist at concentrations as low as 10 parts per million . However , the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether . The extinction of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life , since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth .   In about one billion years , the solar luminosity will be 10 % higher than at present . This will cause the atmosphere to become a `` moist greenhouse '' , resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans . As a likely consequence , plate tectonics will come to an end , and with them the entire carbon cycle . Following this event , in about 2 − 3 billion years , the planet 's magnetic dynamo may cease , causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere . Four billion years from now , the increase in the Earth 's surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect , heating the surface enough to melt it . By that point , all life on the Earth will be extinct . The most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years , after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded to cross the planet 's current orbit .

Evolution <=SEP=> Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations . Evolutionary processes give rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation , including the levels of species , individual organisms , and molecules .   All life on Earth shares a common ancestor known as the last universal common ancestor ( LUCA ) , which lived approximately 3.5 -- 3.8 billion years ago , although a study in 2015 found `` remains of biotic life '' from 4.1 billion years ago in ancient rocks in Western Australia . In July 2016 , scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the LUCA of all organisms living on Earth .   Repeated formation of new species ( speciation ) , change within species ( anagenesis ) , and loss of species ( extinction ) throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth are demonstrated by shared sets of morphological and biochemical traits , including shared DNA sequences . These shared traits are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor , and can be used to reconstruct a biological `` tree of life '' based on evolutionary relationships ( phylogenetics ) , using both existing species and fossils . The fossil record includes a progression from early biogenic graphite , to microbial mat fossils , to fossilized multicellular organisms . Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction . More than 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct . Estimates of Earth 's current species range from 10 to 14 million , of which about 1.9 million are estimated to have been named and 1.6 million documented in a central database to date . More recently , in May 2016 , scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described .   In the mid-19th century , Charles Darwin formulated the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection , published in his book On the Origin of Species ( 1859 ) . Evolution by natural selection is a process demonstrated by the observation that more offspring are produced than can possibly survive , along with three facts about populations : 1 ) traits vary among individuals with respect to morphology , physiology , and behaviour ( phenotypic variation ) , 2 ) different traits confer different rates of survival and reproduction ( differential fitness ) , and 3 ) traits can be passed from generation to generation ( heritability of fitness ) . Thus , in successive generations members of a population are replaced by progeny of parents better adapted to survive and reproduce in the biophysical environment in which natural selection takes place . This teleonomy is the quality whereby the process of natural selection creates and preserves traits that are seemingly fitted for the functional roles they perform . The processes by which the changes occur , from one generation to another , are called evolutionary processes or mechanisms . The four most widely recognized evolutionary processes are natural selection ( including sexual selection ) , genetic drift , mutation and gene migration due to genetic admixture . Natural selection and genetic drift sort variation ; mutation and gene migration create variation .   Consequences of selection can include meiotic drive ( unequal transmission of certain alleles ) , nonrandom mating and genetic hitchhiking .  In the early 20th century the modern evolutionary synthesis integrated classical genetics with Darwin 's theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics . The importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology . Moreover , previously held notions about evolution , such as orthogenesis , evolutionism , and other beliefs about innate `` progress '' within the largest-scale trends in evolution , became obsolete . Scientists continue to study various aspects of evolutionary biology by forming and testing hypotheses , constructing mathematical models of theoretical biology and biological theories , using observational data , and performing experiments in both the field and the laboratory .   In terms of practical application , an understanding of evolution has been instrumental to developments in numerous scientific and industrial fields , including agriculture , human and veterinary medicine , and the life sciences in general . Discoveries in evolutionary biology have made a significant impact not just in the traditional branches of biology but also in other academic disciplines , including biological anthropology , and evolutionary psychology . Evolutionary computation , a sub-field of artificial intelligence , involves the application of Darwinian principles to problems in computer science .

Nature <=SEP=> Nature , in the broadest sense , is the natural , physical , or material world or universe . `` Nature '' can refer to the phenomena of the physical world , and also to life in general . The study of nature is a large part of science . Although humans are part of nature , human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena .   The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura , or `` essential qualities , innate disposition '' , and in ancient times , literally meant `` birth '' . Natura is a Latin translation of the Greek word physis , which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants , animals , and other features of the world develop of their own accord . The concept of nature as a whole , the physical universe , is one of several expansions of the original notion ; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers , and has steadily gained currency ever since . This usage continued during the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries .   Within the various uses of the word today , `` nature '' often refers to geology and wildlife . Nature can refer to the general realm of living plants and animals , and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects -- the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord , such as the weather and geology of the Earth . It is often taken to mean the `` natural environment '' or wilderness -- wild animals , rocks , forest , and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention , or which persist despite human intervention . For example , manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature , unless qualified as , for example , `` human nature '' or `` the whole of nature '' . This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial , with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind . Depending on the particular context , the term `` natural '' might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural .