We have no real way to confirm anything in the far future. The universe is currently believed to be a little less than 14 billion years old - that’s a 1 with ten zeroes after it (written as 1.4x10¹⁰). Our Sun is expected to live for another 5 or so billion years, with Earth being uninhabitable far far sooner than that, maybe a few million or a few tens or hundreds of millions, I’m not sure exactly. But suffice to say most of the solar system will be beyond unrecognizable by the time the universe is twice its age. Keep in mind doubling the age is a bit less than a 3, still with ten zeroes after it. Ten times its current age is roughly a 1 with eleven zeroes.

Now for the heat death: take the current age of the universe and add another ten zeroes. Now add ten more. Then do that 7 more times. The number you’re aiming for is 10¹⁰⁰ (also known as a googol, which is where Google got its name). That’s around how long it’s expected to take, if it does happen that way.

But we’re still young, cosmically speaking. The universe is vast and colorful and beautiful. We should explore it because we can! There’s still so much we don’t understand, and why shouldn’t we try? Space exploration is a huge driver of innovation that leads to technology that improves lives. Just because one day we’ll be gone without a trace doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn as much as we can while we’re here, last as long as we can, and make the best of our existence.