Elon Musk reveals why all life on Earth ending is a certainty Elon: "If we do not become multi-planetary and ultimately go beyond our solar system, annihilation of all life on Earth is a certainty. A certainty." Start with how briefly we've been here at all. Elon: "Earth is about four and a half billion years old. Civilization as measured from the first writing is only about 5,000 years old." "That's one millionth of Earth's existence. Civilization has been around, it's really a flash in the pan so far." And the clock is not metaphorical. Elon: "The sun is expanding slowly, but it will heat the Earth up at some point in the future, boil the oceans, and Earth will become like Venus, where life as we know it is impossible." Then the number that makes it feel close. Elon: "It could be as little as, on the galactic timescale, half a billion years. It's a long time by human standards, but that's only 10% longer than Earth has been around at all. So if life had taken 10% longer to evolve on Earth, it wouldn't exist at all." He thinks that's what the silence out there means. Elon: "There are these great filters, which civilizations don't pass through. And one of those great filters is, do you become a multi-planetary civilization or not?" "If you don't, it's simply a matter of time before something happens on your planet, either natural or manmade, that causes us to die out. Like the dinosaurs. Where are they now? They didn't have spaceships."