For the purposes of this question the Earth ceasing to exist is defined by the mass of our planet dissipating such that it no longer creates its own center of gravity.

Hmm good question. Humans seem to persevere through thick and thin and i think it's only a matter of time before we travel through space leaving a decaying earth behind. I think the earth will perish before our descendants but it probably wont be for awhile

condition does not compute!

Nothing dies, nothing is born,.. its all universe and you wont go anywhere else.
Its all energy and it all simply transforms non stop.

Really...

I voted Humans.

The Earth will survive us like it did with our predecessors (No matrix pun intended)

Maybe it will not be in the same conditions as it is now, but it will still be there.

In ~600 million years all C3 photosynthesising plant life on earth will die out due to increased radiation from the sun getting rid of CO2. Soon after that all plant and animal life will die out on earth.

So the question becomes: 'do you think humans will have left earth for 'permanent' extrasolar habitations by 600 million years from now?' If we destroy ourselves before then we won't, and if we are technologically incapable we won't.

I like to think we will manage.

'permanent' in this sense means ensuring our survival another 7.6 billion years, ie another half the lifetime of the universe, before the sun engulfs the earth so that we outlive it.

However even dispersed particles have a center of gravity, so the answer is never if you take the question literally. There will always be a calculable center of gravity of the bits of earth, so that criterion isn't helpful when talking about destruction. In the above I take the question ignoring this misunderstanding.

This post was edited by TIMMY213 on Nov 2 2012 07:47pm

I don't think we will destroy the earth, but destroy ourselves is a big possibility if we do not wake up soon (see my post in this subforum).

Edit : What you said makes sense TIMMY, I hope we will wake up and find some non poluting energy source soon (or some way to use the one we already know like the sun's energy).

This post was edited by Eti_fr on Nov 2 2012 07:55pm

The egg.

No wait! The chicken!

Wait...

I'm hopelessly infected with optimism so... Earth

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Nov 3 2012 01:42am

if you ever want to get infected with something else give me a call cutie.