According to a news release from the University of East Anglia, Earth will be livable for at least another 1.75 billion years. The results bring to light the livable lifetime of Earth — given our space from the Sun and temperatures at which the Earth can contain liquid water.

To ascertain more information about our planet, the astrobiologists utilized recently found exoplanets as examples. They looked at the potential for these planets to accommodate life.

“We used the ‘habitable zone’ concept to make these estimates – this is the distance from a planet’s star at which temperatures are conducive to having liquid water on the surface,” said Andrew Rushby, from the University of East Anglia’s school of Environmental Science.

“We used stellar evolution models to estimate the end of a planet’s habitable lifetime by determining when it will no longer be in the habitable zone. We estimate that Earth will cease to be habitable somewhere between 1.75 and 3.25 billion years from now. After this point, Earth will be in the ‘hot zone’ of the sun, with temperatures so high that the seas would evaporate. We would see a catastrophic and terminal extinction event for all life.”

According to the researchers, the environment for humans will become impractical well before the Earth’s stops being habitable.

The quantity of habitable time on a planet is meaningful because it reveals a lot about the promise for the evolution of intricate life — which is likely to need a more extensive stretch of habitable conditions.

“Looking at habitability metrics is useful because it allows us to investigate the potential for other planets to host life, and understand the stage that life may be at elsewhere in the galaxy,” Rushby added.

Astronomers have recognized nearly 1,000 exoplanets. The researchers examined some of these as models, and looked at the changing nature of planetary livability over astronomical and geological time.

According to Rushby, other scientists have utilized intricate models to conduct estimates for our planet alone, but these are not appropriate for applying to other planets.

“We compared Earth to eight planets which are currently in their habitable phase, including Mars,” Rushby noted. “We found that planets orbiting smaller mass stars tend to have longer habitable zone lifetimes.”

Although no exact Earth analogue planets has been found, the researchers claim that Mars is probably the best candidate for human habitation (should Earth become unlivable) because it will stay in the Sun’s habitable zone for another six billion years.

The study’s findings are described in greater detail in the journal Astrobiology.