The End of the Earth is Nigh (ish)

How it was in the Beginning – and how it will be in the End.

The Earth and all the other bodies in the Solar System formed from a swirling cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago. In another 4.5 billion years, Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun, swollen to many times its current size. How do we know this? Using information from meteorites – fragments of rock and metal broken from asteroids – we can trace the origin of the Solar System, and make predictions about its end. Monica Grady CBE is Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University, where she studies the origin and evolution of the Solar System through measurement of meteorites. She is a science advisor to one of the instrument teams associated with the Philae lander