The future is an unpredictable notion. But not always. There are many ways, although quite laborious, that can show us what we can expect in the near and far future.
Predicting what will happen is no easy task considering that the world is such a fickle place, with things going awry and not always turning out how we had hoped. However, we lose nothing by making a few presumptions by using the information obtained so far.
Let's take a year, 2050 for example - by the time it rolls around the world will have definitely changed. Our technologies, space exploration and the number of people on Earth and even Mars - all of these things are going to be much different from what we know today. Find out what we might expect in the next 30 years:
2019 - New countries appear on the map. Currently, Bougainville Island in the Pacific Ocean falls under the jurisdiction of Papua New Guinea but within a year's time it will become its own country. The same will happen to the island of New Caledonia.
2020 - The tallest building in the world will be completed. The tallest building currently is the Burj Khalifa but this is going to change by 3 years' time. That is when the Jeddah Tower, in Saudi Arabia, is expected to be completed. Its planned height is 3299 ft (1006 m).
Another significant event is expected to occur in 2020. The first hotel in space is to open its doors after completion at the Bigelow space station.
2024 - The company SpaceX plans to land its innovative spacecraft on Mars.
2025 - The human population on Earth will reach 8 billion. By 2050, the world's population will hit the 10 billion mark.
2026 - The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona will finally be completed. Construction on the cathedral began back in 1883 but remains unfinished to this day. The reasons for this have been the Spanish civil war in 1936, the death of architect Antoni Gaudi and most importantly - the unique complexity of the building.
2028 - Venice will become an uninhabitable territory. By 2100 the whole city will be entirely under water due to the rising water level there.
2029 - The asteroid Apophis will approach Earth. The probability of it hitting us is 3% but this number could increase with time.
2030 - There will no longer be any Arctic ice. According to some studies, the Arctic ice sheets will melt completely by the end of the 21st century.
2033 - The Aurora mission begins - it is the European Space Agency's human spaceflight program, originally established in 2001. The goal will be exploration of the Solar System and especially the planet Mars and certain asteroids. Before we send humans to Mars in 2033, engineers will be developing technologies to facilitate landing and takeoff from the planet.
2035 - The first quantum teleportation is scheduled to take place in Russia. This will create a reliable method of communication between Earth and space.
2036 - Ships will begin their journey to the Alpha Centauri star system. It will take them 20 years to reach the closest star of the system and about another 5 years to send a signal back to Earth that they've successfully landed on a planet there.
2038 - The US will uncover the secrets surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Until that year, information pertaining to the assassination will remain confidential.
2045 - The technological singularity will occur. This seemingly hypothetical event will most likely happen. At that point, technology will have advanced to such a degree that it will impose substantial changes to life on Earth.
2048 - The moratorium over the exploitation of minerals in the Antarctic expires in 2048. The continent is exceptionally rich in minerals but there is currently a ban on mining them. Once the ban is lifted, life on Earth will change once again.
2050 - The colonization of Mars begins. This is the event that will change humanity forever. But before it happens, scientists will have to solve certain issues and problems related to enabling life to survive on Mars.
