Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt and her tragic end

On August 10th, 30 BC, at the age of 39, Cleopatra’s life came to a dramatic end. It has been 2,055 years since that fateful day, marking the final chapter for the Queen of world history.

Cleopatra was found in a stone chamber, lying on a gilded bed in her finest royal attire and crown. At her feet lay her most trusted maid, Iras, dead. Her other maid, Charmian, passed away shortly after, having witnessed her queen's final breath.

For 21 years, Cleopatra had ruled Egypt. She came to power at 18, forced into a partnership and marriage with her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII. This alliance quickly crumbled, leading to a bitter civil war.

While Egypt was in chaos, the Roman ruler Julius Caesar arrived. Cleopatra famously had herself smuggled in to meet him and, captivated by her intelligence and beauty, Caesar became her ally. With his help, she defeated and killed her brother in battle.

Cleopatra reclaimed her throne, ruling first with another brother, Ptolemy XIV, and later with her son by Caesar, Caesarion.

After Caesar's assassination, Cleopatra returned to Egypt. There, she met Mark Antony, one of Rome's new leaders, who fell for her just as Caesar had. Their love affair led to three children.

Enraged by their union, Octavian, another of Rome's leaders, declared war. In the inevitable battle, Cleopatra and Antony were utterly defeated.

The couple fled and, in a desperate act, Cleopatra sent a false message that she was dead. Believing her, Antony took his own life, only to learn the truth as he lay dying. He was brought to her chamber, where he died in her arms.

Octavian captured her, but she refused to be paraded as a Roman captive. While imprisoned in her own chamber, she chose to die by using the venom of a cobra. When Octavian's soldiers arrived to take her, they found her and her two loyal maids dead.

In a final act of revenge, Octavian ordered the death of her son, Caesarion. With Cleopatra's death, Egypt’s independent kingdom was absorbed into the Roman Empire.

Ultimately, she did not die as a captive. Wearing her crown and royal jewels, she chose her own end, ensuring her legacy as a queen who defied her Roman captors until the very last moment.

Will the Earth ever end?

 Yes, everything that has a beginning has an end.

The Earth, our home planet, is no exception.

The most likely scenario for its demise will be during the end of the main sequence for the Sun, in 7.88 billion years, where it has expended its hydrogen fuel and can no longer maintain hydrostatic equilibrium. It grows in volume exponentially to become a Red Giant. This will likely consume the Earth (and the Moon) utterly, they will become part of the Sun and no trace or evidence of its existence will remain.

If the eventual radius of the Sun does not exceed 150,000,000 km (1 AU), then the Earth will just get a front row seat of the helium flash, with the Sun filling the sky and surface temperatures exceeding those that boil carbon, it becomes vapour and part of the Sun’s photosphere.

It’s worth noting that no living things will perish at this time, as the Sun is increasing in luminosity and temperature by around 1% every 100 million years. So a billion years from now, and 6.8 billion before the Red Giant phase, the surface temperature on Earth will not support liquid water, the oceans will boil away, and all life as we know it will cease to exist.

Mars will survive the clutches of the expanded Sun, but have a surface temperature similar to Mercury now. Interestingly, the moons of Jupiter and/or Saturn might be hospitable (in purely a temperature sense) and allow liquid water on their surfaces.

If this fate, of the Earth becoming inhospitable to life in around a billion years, distresses you (in a philanthropic sense, as you’ll be long gone) then it shouldn’t.

This is what a human ancestor looked like 1 billion years ago:

No, not the dude next to the pick-up (he came along a little later), the green slime - Cyanobacteria - on the water.

These steps are not to scale, we have only been humanoids for around 4 million years, and only strictly human for 160,000 years:

So you can imagine, regarding how evolutionary development has sped up over time, what our descendants might look like in another 1 billion years. Or rather, you can’t imagine, but you get the idea.

Even without the exponential acceleration of our evolution allowed for by technology, and the unimaginable forms of meta-humans in just one thousand years, our descendants will not be anything vaguely resembling humanity by the time the Earth gets too hot to harbour life.

So the Earth will end, but it’s highly unlikely that what we become in the future will end with it. If we don’t manage to at least populate our solar system or build space habitats by then, it will be the worst case of under-achieving the Universe has seen since the Kjorg of Andromeda were gifted omniscience by an ancient pure energy culture and the chance to sublime, and decided to drink cocktails on their favourite beach planet instead.