in the end earth

The Ending Of In The Earth Explained

The new horror film "In the Earth" got plenty of attention after debuting at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, thanks largely to comparisons to the COVID-19 pandemic and because of filmmaker Ben Wheatley's  ability to combine eco-terror with the occult in an unsettling and visceral way. The movie opens with individuals socially distancing, wearing protective gear, and emerging from quarantine, thanks to a deadly virus that has ravaged the Earth. While the virus depicted in the film isn't COVID-19, it's easy to make comparisons, although the movie's virus isn't the most deadly threat depicted in its story. 

Dr. Martin Lowery (portrayed by Joel Fry of the upcoming " Cruella ") is studying the region's fertile soil for crop benefits and, after undergoing a series of tests to verify he's virus-free, sets off to join his colleague, Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has been conducting scientific studies in the woods for months. With the assistance of a park guide, Alma (played by Ellora Torchia of " Midsommar "), Martin sets off into the forest, only for events to continuously take a dark and dangerous turn for the duo.

Science meets the supernatural for a psychedelic twist

To understand the ending, its important to make note of some key plot points throughout the movie. While Martin is in quarantine before venturing into the woods, Alma explains the legend of Parnag Fegg, the Spirit of the Woods, which she describes as a local folktale designed to prevent children from going missing in the forest. Apparently some did go missing in the 1970s, and "This helps keep them more aware," she says. When Martin questions — based on the artwork depicting Parnag Fegg hanging in the lodge — whether the entity is meant to help or harm people, Alma never answers, allowing the suggestion of a negative force to take root in viewers' minds. Later, the two come across an abandoned tent that indicates a family with children had been its occupants. This eerily echoes what Martin was told prior to entering the forest — that many people have gone missing in the woods in recent months. That night, Martin and Alma are attacked in their tents while sleeping, bludgeoned and knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant. Upon awakening, their shoes have been removed and their supplies either taken or destroyed. 

Soon after, Martin and Alma encounter a disheveled man living in the woods. His name is Zach (Reece Shearsmith), and he's obsessed with Parnag Fegg, leaving the spirit staged photos as offerings. Martin and Alma become his latest subjects when he drugs them, poses them in a ritualistic manner, takes their pictures, and marks them with strange symbols. This all builds up the mysterious, possibly supernatural atmosphere of the film — similar to what filmmakers did with "The Blair Witch Project" — which plays an important role in trying to decipher the ending.

Or is there a scientific explanation, after all?

Director Ben Wheatley adds to the ending's ambiguity by introducing Olivia Wendle, Martin's to-the-point, science-minded colleague, who believes research can explain the folklore of Parnag Fegg. More specifically, she believes the ancient journals and drawings reveal a way to communicate with nature. Olivia reveals that Zach is her ex-husband, who brought her supplies and helped her set up an experiment to prove that the plant life found in the forest is capable of communication through light and sound. However, the experiments drove him insane. She believes Parnag Fegg isn't a supernatural creature but the trees, fungi, and plants communicating together to affect the people who venture into the forest. 

Here, the story moves farther from "The Blair Witch Project" and closer to "The Happening." To prove her point, Olivia argues that she didn't ask Zach to come help her; he simply showed up, claiming he couldn't stop thinking about her and was "called to" the forest. Martin, too, volunteered to check on Olivia because he couldn't stop thinking about her. Olivia deduces that because all three of them had ringworm, Parnag Fegg used the fungi to connect and draw all three of them to the woods. Nature, she believes, is trying to convey a message to them.

As the non-scientist of the group, Alma believes they should leave the camp before Zach discovers them, but Olivia's theory seems to hold true when mushrooms in the forest release a cloud of spores into the air that causes Martin and Alma to experience painful sensations when they try to leave the campsite. It's as if nature is keeping them contained to the spot, proved again when Alma dons protective gear and tries to leave, only to become disoriented and unable to move because of the spores. When Alma questions what message the woods are trying to communicate to them, Olivia responds: "How can we all live together without destroying each other? It's the same as any other creature. It's worried about its environment, food, shelter." 

Nothing is as it seems

In the final act of the film, Martin and Alma agree to assist Olivia with her experiments, but Zach arrives to wreak havoc. Here, Wheatley marries the concept of the occult, represented by Zach, with science, as illustrated by Olivia, blurring the ending's meaning and leaving it open to viewer speculation. Zach plans to sacrifice Martin to Parnag Fegg to allow the spirit to communicate openly with them. When Alma recovers and rushes into Olivia's tent to warn the other woman, she discovers Olivia has hundreds of photographs of Zach's posed victims — proving she and Zach have been working together all along.

Alma is able to fight off Olivia and kills Zach, right as the mushroom mist envelopes the camp. After experiencing visions of nature intermingled with their lives, the three survivors have different reactions. Olivia collapses, mutters "Thank you," and seemingly dies, while a calm and smiling Alma emerges into the sunlight. Finding a barely conscious Martin, she tells him, "Let me guide you out of the woods." Alma, who has been the most rational character throughout the movie, still maintains her purpose and poise, proving once again to be Martin's savior. Is it because she's had the least exposure to the fungus or because she's experienced an enlightening supernatural occurrence? Perhaps, the answer is both.

The ending of the film is ambiguous but seems to imply that the folklore and ideology humans embrace can be more harmful and destructive than mother nature. Olivia and Zach seem to have lost their sanity after being exposed to the mushroom spores over several months, driving them to murder anyone who stumbled upon their camp, at least partly because they embraced the local folklore. Martin, who had been exposed to ringworm weeks before, also showed signs of disillusion and interest in the forest's myth, raising the question of whether the ringworm infection was related to the deadly virus that affected the outside world and corrupted their minds. Alma, who never had ringworm, remained the voice of reason and was the most capable throughout the story. This makes it conceivable Olivia was right and Parnag Fegg was the Spirit of the Woods — or the woods themselves were fighting back against its biggest threat: mankind.

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Class of 2024 learns ‘three little secrets to change the world’

Doomsday clock remains at a minute and a half to midnight in 2024—closest ever to apocalypse.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced on Jan. 23 that the hands of the Doomsday Clock will remain at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to apocalypse. 

Every year, the Bulletin determines how much metaphorical time we have to avert catastrophe for humankind. Over the past 75 years, the hands of the clock have moved according to whether steps were taken to address threats that could end human civilization on Earth, including climate change and nuclear war. 

In 2023, the Bulletin set the hands of the clock at a minute and a half to midnight—closer than it had ever been before, including during the Cold War. This year, the organization determined that not enough progress has been made to move the hands back.

Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, said the move is “not an indication that the world is stable. Quite the opposite. It’s urgent for governments and communities around the world to act.” 

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was created by a group of concerned Manhattan Project scientists, many based at the University of Chicago, shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1947, artist and Bulletin member Martyl Langsdorf created the iconic Doomsday Clock to signal how close humanity was to self-destruction.

Today, the Doomsday Clock is located at the Bulletin offices in the Keller Center, home to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Multiple UChicago faculty members have served on its boards over the years; currently, University of Chicago Prof. Daniel Holz is chair of the Science and Security Board that sets the hands of the clock every year, and Prof. Robert Rosner sits on the Board of Sponsors.

In their 2024 decision, the Bulletin cited the continuing war in Ukraine and Russia’s suspension of its participation in arms agreements, the war in Gaza, and the fact that 2023 was the hottest year on record. They also noted the growth of AI as a disruptive technology with potential for magnifying corruption and disinformation, though it may not yet be categorizable as an existential threat.

They also noted, however, increased investment in renewable energy as a positive step. The Bulletin has always emphasized that the clock is not intended to make people fearful, but rather to spur them to action. The full statement lists a number of actions needed to make the world safer, and urges people to press their governments for action.

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How will life on Earth end?

Life is resilient. The first living things on Earth appeared as far back as 4 billion years ago, according to some scientists. At the time, our planet was still being pummeled by huge space rocks. But life persisted anyway. And throughout Earth’s history, it’s seen all manner of cataclysms. Disparate doomsdays — from supernovae blasts and asteroid strikes to huge volcanic eruptions and sudden climate shifts — have killed countless lifeforms. And at times, those mass extinctions have even eliminated most species on Earth.

Yet, life has always rebounded. New species emerge. The cycle repeats.

So, what would it take to kill off life in full? Well, it turns out that while humanity might be surprisingly fragile, it’s not easy to sterilize an entire planet. Nonetheless, below are just a few possible doomsday events that could permanently extinguish all life on Earth — and the last one is likely unavoidable.

Asteroid impact apocalypse

When a city-sized asteroid struck the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago , it was game over for the dinosaurs, as well as most other species on Earth at the time. And while our ancestors hadn’t yet evolved, the impact was perhaps the single most important event in human history. Without that asteroid strike, dinosaurs might have continued to rule the Earth, leaving us mammals still cowering in the shadows.

Humans, however, won’t always be on the winning side of such random events. A future asteroid could just as easily take out every person on Earth. Fortunately, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Based on the geological record of cosmic impacts, Earth gets hit by a large asteroid roughly every 100 million years, according to NASA . However, smaller asteroid impacts do happen all the time. There’s even evidence that some people may have been killed by small meteorite impacts within the past few thousand years.

But what are the chances that our planet will ever be struck by an asteroid massive enough to wipe out all life on Earth? Simulations published in Nature back in 2017 suggest it would take a truly gigantic space rock to accomplish such a feat. Killing all life on Earth would require an impact that literally boils away the oceans. And only asteroids like Pallas and Vesta — the solar system’s largest — are big enough to do that. There is evidence that infant Earth was struck by a large planetoid called Theia . But these days, collisions of such large objects are extremely unlikely.

Death by deoxygenation

For a more likely glimpse of an Earth-altering cataclysm, we need to look to the distant past.

Nearly 2.5 billion years ago, a period called the Great Oxidation Event gave us the breathable atmosphere we all now depend on. An eruption of cyanobacteria, sometimes called blue-green algae, filled our atmosphere with oxygen, creating a world where multicellular life-forms could take hold, and where creatures like humans could ultimately breathe.

However, one of Earth’s great die-offs, an event 450 million years ago called the Late Ordovician mass extinction, likely happened because the inverse took place. The planet saw a sudden drop in oxygen levels that lasted for several million years.

What could have caused such an extreme event? During the Ordovician period, the continents were one jumbled mass called Gondwana. Most life on Earth still lived in the oceans, but plants were beginning to emerge on land. Then, near the end of the Ordovician, a sweeping climate shift left the supercontinent covered with glaciers. That global cooling alone was enough to start killing off species.

But then a second pulse of the extinction ramped up as oxygen levels plummeted. Scientists see evidence of this shift in seafloor samples collected from around the world. Some researchers think that the glaciers were responsible for fundamentally changing the layers of the oceans, which have unique temperatures and specific concentrations of elements like oxygen. Yet, the exact cause of the oxygen drop is still up for debate.

Whatever the cause, the end result is that more than 80 percent of life on Earth died during the Late Ordovician mass extinction, according to some estimates .

So, it may have happened before, but could a deoxygenation event happen again? In an eerie comparison to today, researchers involved in the recent Nature Communications study say that climate change is already reducing oxygen levels in our oceans, potentially killing off marine species.

Gamma-ray burst extinction

Even if a sudden spate of global cooling sparked the Late Ordovician mass extinction, what set that in motion in the first place? Over the years, numerous astronomers have suggested the culprit might have been a gamma-ray burst (GRB).

GRBs are mysterious events that seem to be the most violent and energetic explosions in the cosmos, and astronomers suspect they’re tied to extreme supernovae. However (and thankfully), we haven’t yet seen a burst close enough to us to fully understand what’s going on. So far, GRBs have only been spotted in other galaxies.

But if one did happen in the Milky Way, as has likely happened in the past, it could cause a mass extinction on Earth. A GRB pointed in our direction might last just 10 seconds or so, but it could still destroy at least half Earth’s ozone in that short period of time. As humans have learned in recent decades, even a relatively small amount of ozone depletion is enough to chip away at our planet’s natural sunscreen, causing serious problems. Wiping out the ozone on a large enough scale could wreak havoc on food chains, killing off huge numbers of species.

A GRB would wipe out the lifeforms that live in the upper levels of the ocean, which currently contribute significant amounts of oxygen to our atmosphere. And, it turns out, gamma rays also break apart atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen. These gasses get converted into nitrogen dioxide, which is more commonly known as the smog that blocks out the Sun above heavily polluted cities. Having this smog blanketing the entire Earth would block out sunshine and kickstart a global ice age.

End of the Sun

Any of the devastating scenarios above, while undoubtedly terrible for life, are just a fraction as bad as future Earth’s ultimate fate. Gamma-ray burst or not, in about a billion years, most life on Earth will eventually die anyway due to a lack of oxygen. That’s according to a different study published in March in the journal Nature Geoscience .

The researchers suggest that our oxygen-rich atmosphere is not a permanent feature of the planet. Instead, in about a billion years, solar activity will cause atmospheric oxygen to plummet back down to the level it was at before the Great Oxidation Event. To determine this, the authors combined climate models and biogeochemistry models to simulate what will happen to the atmosphere as the Sun ages and puts out more energy.

They found that, eventually, Earth reaches a point where atmospheric carbon dioxide breaks down. At that point, oxygen-producing plants and organisms that rely on photosynthesis will die out. Our planet won’t have enough lifeforms to sustain the oxygen-rich atmosphere humans and other animals require.

The precise timing of when that starts and how long it takes — the deoxygenation process could take as few as 10,000 years — depends on a broad range of factors. But, in the end, the authors say this cataclysm is an unavoidable one for the planet.

Luckily, humanity still has another billion years to figure out other plans.

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Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee

Disclosure statement

Shichun Huang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Tennessee provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Will the Earth last forever? – Solomon, age 5, California

Everything that has a beginning has an end. But the Earth will last for a very long time, and its end will come billions of years after anyone who is alive here now is gone.

Before we talk about the future of our planet, let’s review its history and when life appeared on it. The history of human beings is very, very short compared with that of Earth.

4 billion years old

Our planet formed from a giant cloud of gas and dust in space, which is called a nebula, about 4.6 billion years ago . The first continent might have formed on its surface as early as 4.4 billion years ago .

The atmosphere of the early Earth did not contain oxygen , so it would have been toxic to human beings if they had been present then. It was very different from Earth’s atmosphere today, which is about 21% oxygen. Many life forms, including humans, need oxygen to live.

Where did that oxygen come from? Scientists believe that atmospheric oxygen started to rise about 2.4 billion years ago in a shift they call the Great Oxidation Event.

Tiny microorganisms had already existed on Earth’s surface for a while. Some of them developed the ability to produce energy from sunlight , the way plants do today. As they did it, they released oxygen. It built up in the atmosphere and made it possible for more complex life forms to evolve.

This took a long time. The first animals, which may have been sea sponges, probably appeared about 660 million years ago . Depending how we define humans, humans emerged in Africa about 200,000 years to 2 million years ago, and spread out everywhere from there .

Billions more to go

Now, as we think about the future of the Earth, we know there are two essential factors that humans need to live here.

First, the Sun provides most of the energy that living things on Earth need to survive. Plants use sunlight to grow and to produce oxygen. Animals, including humans, rely directly or indirectly on plants for food and oxygen.

The other thing that makes the Earth habitable for life is that our planet’s surface keeps moving and shifting. This ever-changing surface environment produces weather patterns and chemical changes in the oceans and on the continents that have enabled life to evolve on Earth .

The movement of the giant pieces of Earth’s outer layer , which are called plates, is driven by heat in the interior of the Earth. This source will keep the Earth’s interior hot for billions of years .

So, what will change? Scientists estimate that the Sun will keep shining for another 5 billion years . But it will gradually get brighter and brighter, and warm the Earth more and more.

This warming is so slow that we wouldn’t even notice it. In about 1 billion years, our planet will be too hot to maintain oceans on its surface to support life. That’s a really long time away: an average human lifetime is about 73 years , so a billion is more than 13 million human lifetimes.

Long after that – about 5 billion years from now – our Sun will expand into an even bigger star that astronomers call a “red giant,” which eventually will engulf the Earth. Just as our planet existed for over 4 billion years before humans appeared, it will last for another 4 billion to 5 billion years, long after it becomes uninhabitable for humans.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to [email protected] . Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

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In the Earth

As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run.

• Ben Wheatley
• Reece Shearsmith
• Hayley Squires
• 315 User reviews
• 144 Critic reviews
• 63 Metascore
• 1 win & 9 nominations

• Martin Lowery

• Olivia Wendle

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia Director Ben Wheatley said the soundtrack was partially created using plants.
• Goofs When, at the beginning, he learns that a previous team has gone missing, the main character asks if they have tried "GPRS". This is the technology behind text and phone calls. Presumably he meant "GPS", the technology for locating things. A lack of phone signal (GPRS) being the reason for a previous group getting lost discussed by the characters is an odd assertion. If GPS was meant, it requires no phone signal, just a satellite signal unencumbered by reflections or interference, and therefore would be able to give a precise location in the setting of the film. It is feasible that there would be no GPRS (2G cellular data signal) in such a remote location, but that would not affect being able to get a location.
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• April 16, 2021 (United States)
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• Apr 18, 2021

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• Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Earth is the planet we live on, the third of eight planets in our solar system and the only known place in the universe to support life.

Earth Science, Astronomy, Geology, Geography, Physical Geography

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Learning materials.

• The active outer shell of Earth is dominated by tectonic plates, whose interactions result in volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and geysers. Click to visit MapMaker Interactive's layer on Earth's tectonic plates.

Earth is the planet we live on, one of eight planets in our solar system and the only known place in the universe to support life.

Earth is the third planet from the sun , after Mercury and Venus, and before Mars. It is about 150 million kilometers (about 93 million miles) from the sun. This distance, called an astronomical unit (AU), is a standard unit of measurement in astronomy . Earth is one AU from the sun. The planet Jupiter is about 5.2 AU from the sun—about 778 million kilometers (483.5 million miles).

Earth is the largest and most massive of the rocky inner planets , although it is dwarfed by the gas giants beyond the Asteroid Belt . Its diameter is about 12,700 kilometers (7,900 miles), and its mass is about 5.97×1024 kilograms (6.58×1021 tons). In contrast, Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has a diameter of 143,000 kilometers (88,850 miles), and its mass is about 1,898×1024 kilograms (2093×1021 tons).

Earth is an oblate spheroid . This means it is spherical in shape, but not perfectly round. It has a slightly greater radius at the Equator , the imaginary line running horizontally around the middle of the planet. In addition to bulging in the middle, Earth’s poles are slightly flattened. The geoid describes the model shape of Earth, and is used to calculate precise surface locations.

Earth has one natural satellite , the moon . Earth is the only planet in the solar system to have one moon. Venus and Mercury do not have any moons, for example, while Jupiter and Saturn each have more than a dozen.

Planet Earth  

Earth’s interior is a complex structure of superheated rocks. Most geologists recognize three major layers: the dense core , the bulky mantle , and the brittle crust . No one has ever ventured below Earth’s crust.

Earth’s core is mostly made of iron and nickel . It consists of a solid center surrounded by an outer layer of liquid . The core is found about 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) below Earth’s surface, and has a radius of about 3,485 kilometers (2,165 miles).

A mantle of heavy rock (mostly silicates ) surrounds the core. The mantle is about 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) thick, and makes up a whopping 84 percent of Earth’s total volume . Parts of the mantle are molten , meaning they are composed of partly melted rock. The mantle’s molten rock is constantly in motion. It is forced to the surface during volcanic eruptions and at mid-ocean ridges .

Earth’s crust is the planet’s thinnest layer, accounting for just one percent of Earth’s mass. There are two kinds of crust: thin, dense oceanic crust and thick, less-dense continental crust . Oceanic crust extends about five to 10 kilometers (three to six miles) beneath the ocean floor. Continental crust is about 35 to 70 kilometers (22 to 44 miles) thick.

Exterior: Tectonic Activity

The crust is covered by a series of constantly moving tectonic plates . New crust is created along mid-ocean ridges and rift valleys , where plates pull apart from each other in a process called rifting . Plates slide above and below each other in a process called subduction . They crash against each other in a process called faulting .

Tectonic activity such as subduction and faulting has shaped the crust into a variety of landscapes . Earth’s highest point is Mount Everest, Nepal, which soars 8,850 kilometers (29,035 feet) in the Himalaya Mountains in Asia. Mount Everest continues to grow every year, as subduction drives the Indo-Australian tectonic plate below the Eurasian tectonic plate. Subduction also creates Earth’s deepest point, the Mariana Trench, about 11 kilometers (6.9 miles) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The heavy Pacific plate is being subducted beneath the small Mariana plate.

Plate tectonics are also responsible for landforms such as geysers , earthquakes , and volcanoes . Tectonic activity around the Pacific plate, for instance, creates the Ring of Fire . This tectonically active area includes volcanoes such as Mount Fuji, Japan, and earthquake-prone fault zones such as the west coast of the United States.

Revolution and Rotation

Earth is a rocky body constantly moving around the sun in a path called an orbit . Earth and the moon follow a slightly oval-shaped orbit around the sun every year.

Each journey around the sun, a trip of about 940 million kilometers (584 million miles), is called a revolution. A year on Earth is the time it takes to complete one revolution, about 365.25 days. Earth orbits the sun at a speedy rate of about 30 kilometers per second (18.5 miles per second).

At the same time that it revolves around the sun, Earth rotates on its own axis . Rotation is when an object, such as a planet, turns around an invisible line running down its center. Earth’s axis is vertical, running from the North Pole to the South Pole. Earth makes one complete rotation about every 24 hours. Earth rotates unevenly, spinning faster at the Equator than at the poles. At the Equator, Earth rotates at about 1,670 kilometers per hour (1,040 miles per hour), while at 45° north, for example, (the approximate latitude of Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States) Earth rotates at 1,180 kilometers per hour (733 miles per hour).

Earth’s rotation causes the periods of light and darkness we call day and night. The part of Earth facing the sun is in daylight; the part facing away from the sun is in darkness. If Earth did not rotate, one-half of Earth would always be too hot to support life, and the other half would be frozen. Earth rotates from west to east, so the sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west. 

In addition to Earth’s revolution and rotation periods, we experience light and darkness due to Earth’s axis not being straight up-and-down. Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted 23.5°. This tilt influences temperature changes and other weather patterns from season to season. 

The Spheres

Earth’s physical environment is often described in terms of spheres: the magnetosphere , the atmosphere , the hydrosphere , and the lithosphere . Parts of these spheres make up the biosphere , the area of Earth where life exists.

Magnetosphere

Earth’s magnetosphere describes the pocket of space surrounding our planet where charged particles are controlled by Earth’s magnetic field .

The charged particles that int eract with Earth’s magnetosphere are called the solar wind . The pressure of the solar wind compresses the magnetosphere on the “dayside” of Earth to about 10 Earth radii. The long tail of the magnetosphere on the “nightside” of Earth stretches to hundreds of Earth radii. The most well-known aspect of the magnetosphere are the charged particles that sometimes interact over its poles—the auroras , or Northern and Southern Lights.

Earth’s atmosphere is a blanket of gases enveloping Earth and retained by our planet’s gravity . Atmospheric gases include nitrogen, water vapor , oxygen , and carbon dioxide .

The atmosphere is responsible for temperature and other weather patterns on Earth. It blocks most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation (UV), conducts solar radiation and precipitation through constantly moving air masses , and keeps our planet’s average surface temperature to about 15° Celsius (59° Fahrenheit).

The atmosphere has a layered structure. From the ground toward the sky, the layers are the troposphere , stratosphere , mesosphere , thermosphere , and exosphere . Up to 75 percent of the total mass of the atmosphere is in the troposphere, where most weather occurs. The boundaries between the layers are not clearly defined, and change depending on latitude and season.

Hydrosphere

The hydrosphere is composed of all the water on Earth. Nearly three-fourths of Earth is covered in water, most of it in the ocean. Less than three percent of the hydrosphere is made up of freshwater . Most freshwater is frozen in ice sheets and glaciers in Antarctica, the North American island of Greenland, and the Arctic. Freshwater can also be found underground, in chambers called aquifers , as well as rivers , lakes , and springs .

Water also circulates around the world as vapor. Water vapor can condense into clouds and fall back to Earth as precipitation.

The hydrosphere helps regulate Earth’s temperature and climate . The ocean absorbs heat from the sun and interacts with the atmosphere to move it around Earth in air currents .

Lithosphere

The lithosphere is Earth’s solid shell. The crust and the upper portion of the mantle form the lithosphere. It extends from Earth’s surface to between 50 and 280 kilometers (31 to 174 miles) below it. The difference in thickness accounts for both thin oceanic and thicker continental crust.

The rocks and minerals in Earth’s lithosphere are made of many elements . Rocks with oxygen and silicon , the most abundant elements in the lithosphere, are called silicates. Quartz is the most common silicate in the lithosphere—and the most common type of rock on Earth.

Cycles on Earth

Almost all materials on Earth are constantly being recycled . The three most common cycles are the water cycle , the carbon cycle , and the rock cycle .

Water Cycle

The water cycle involves three main phases, related to the three states of water: solid, liquid, and gas. Ice , or solid water, is most common near the poles and at high altitudes . Ice sheets and glaciers hold the most solid water.

Ice sheets and glaciers melt, transforming into liquid water. The most abundant liquid water on the planet is in the ocean, although lakes, rivers, and underground aquifers also hold liquid water. Life on Earth is dependent on a supply of liquid water. Most organisms, in fact, are made up mostly of liquid water, called body water . The human body is about 50 percent to 60 percent body water. In addition to survival and hygiene , people use liquid water for energy and transportation .

The third phase of the water cycle occurs as liquid water evaporates. Evaporation is the process of a liquid turning into a gas, or vapor. Water vapor is invisible and makes up part of the atmosphere. As water vapor condenses, or turns back into liquid, pockets of vapor become visible as clouds and fog . Eventually, clouds and fog become saturated , or full of liquid water. This liquid water falls to Earth as precipitation. It can then enter a body of water, such as an ocean or lake, or freeze and become part of a glacier or ice sheet. The water cycle starts again.

Carbon Cycle

The carbon cycle involves the exchange of the element carbon through Earth’s atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. Carbon, essential for all life on Earth, enters the biosphere many ways. Carbon is one of the gases that make up the atmosphere. It is also ejected during the eruption of volcanoes and ocean vents .

All living or once-living materials contain carbon. These materials are organic . Plants and other autotrophs depend on carbon dioxide to create nutrients in a process called photosynthesis . These nutrients contain carbon. Animals and other organisms that consume autotrophs obtain carbon. Fossil fuels , the remains of ancient plants and animals, contain very high amounts of carbon.

As organisms die and decompose , they release carbon into the ocean, soil , or atmosphere. Plants and other autotrophs use this carbon for photosynthesis, starting the carbon cycle again.

The rock cycle is a process that explains the relationship between the three main types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Unlike water in the water cycle and or carbon in the carbon cycle, not all rocks are recycled in different forms. There are some rocks that have been in their present form since soon after Earth cooled. These stable rock formations are called cratons .

Igneous rocks are formed as lava hardens. Lava is molten rock ejected by volcanoes during eruptions. Granite and basalt are common types of igneous rocks. Igneous rocks can be broken apart by the forces of erosion and weathering . Winds or ocean currents may then transport these tiny rocks ( sand and dust ) to a different location.

Sedimentary rocks are created from millions of tiny particles slowly building up over time. Igneous rocks can become sedimentary by collecting with other rocks into layers. Sedimentary rocks include sandstone and limestone .

Metamorphic rocks are formed when rocks are subjected to intense heat and pressure. The rocks change (undergo metamorphosis ) to become a new type of rock. Marble , for example, is a metamorphic rock created from rock that was once limestone, a sedimentary rock.

Earth’s Evolution

Earth and the rest of the solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a huge, spinning cloud of gas and dust.

Over a period of about 10 million years, the dense center of the cloud grew very hot. This massive center became the sun. The rest of the particles and objects continued to revolve around the sun, colliding with each other in clumps. Eventually, these clumps compressed into planets, asteroids , and moons. This process generated a lot of heat. 

Eventually, Earth began to cool and its materials began to separate. Lighter materials floated upward and formed a thin crust. Heavier materials sank toward Earth’s center. Eventually, three main layers formed: the core, the mantle, and the crust.

As Earth’s internal structure developed, gases released from the interior mixed together, forming a thick, steamy atmosphere around the planet. Water vapor condensed, and was augmented by water from asteroids and comets that continued to crash to Earth. Rain began to fall and liquid water slowly filled basins in Earth’s crust, forming a primitive ocean that covered most of the planet. Today, ocean waters continue to cover nearly three-quarters of our planet.

The end of Earth will come with the end of the sun. In a few billion years, the sun will no longer be able to sustain the nuclear reactions that keep its mass and luminosity consistent . First, the sun will lose more than a quarter of its mass, which will loosen its gravitational hold on Earth. Earth’s orbit will widen to about 1.7 AU. But the sun will also gain volume, expanding to about 250 times its current size. The sun in this red giant phase will drag Earth into its own fiery atmosphere, destroying the planet.

Eras on Earth

Paleontologists , geologists, and other scientists divide Earth’s history into time periods. The largest time period is the supereon , and only applies to one unit of time, the Precambrian . Eons , eras, and periods are smaller units of geologic time.

Most of Earth’s history took place in the Pre cambrian , which began when Earth was cooling and ended about 542 million years ago. Life began in the Precambrian, in the forms of bacteria and other single-celled organisms. Fossils from the Precambrian are rare and difficult to study. The Precambrian supereon is usually broken into three eons: the Hadean , the Archaean , and the Proterozoic .

We are currently living in the Phanerozoic eon.

The first major era of the Phanerozoic is called the Paleozoic, and the Cambrian is the first period of the Paleozoic era . “The Cambrian Explosion of Life ” was the rapid appearance of almost all forms of life. Paleontologists and geologists have studied fossils of archaea , bacteria, algae , fungi , plants, and animals that lived during the Cambrian period. The Cambrian was followed by the Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian periods.

The Mesozoic era began about 251 million years ago. This was the era when dinosaurs flourished . The Mezozoic has three periods: the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous.

We currently live in the Cenozoic era, which began about 65 million years ago. The Cenozoic is generally marked by three periods: the Paleogene, the Neogene, and the Quaternary . We live in the Quaternary period, which began about 2.5 million years ago. All ancestors of Homo sapiens (modern humans) evolved during the Quaternary.

Earth by the Numbers

Surface Gravity: 1 (one kilogram on Earth)

Orbital Period: 365.256 days

Satellites: 1 (the Moon)

Atmosphere: nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon, carbon dioxide, neon

Average Temperature: 15° Celsius (77 Kelvin, 59° Fahrenheit)

Ingredients for Life Scientists have gathered enough information about other planets in our solar system to know that none can support life as we know it. Life is not possible without a stable atmosphere containing the right chemical ingredients for living organisms: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. These ingredients must be balanced—not too thick or too thin. Life also depends on the presence of water. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have atmospheres made mostly of hydrogen and helium. These planets are called gas giants, because they are mostly made of gas and do not have a solid outer crust. Mercury and Mars have some of the right ingredients, but their atmospheres are far too thin to support life. The atmosphere of Venus is too thick—the planet's surface temperature is more than 460 degrees Celsius (860 degrees Fahrenheit). Jupiter's moon Europa has a thin atmosphere rich with oxygen. It is likely covered by a huge ocean of liquid water. Some astrobiologists think that if life exists elsewhere in the solar system, it will be near vents at the bottom of Europa's ocean.

Earth to Earth Earth is the only planet in the solar system not named for a Greek or Roman deity. "Earth" originally meant the soil and land of our planet. (This is still what it means when the word is lowercase.) Eventually, Earth came to mean the planet itself.

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April 30, 2024

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In The Earth Ending, Explained

Reared by English filmmaker and screenwriter Ben Wheatley, ‘In the Earth’ is a gripping, captivating, and visceral Lovecraftian horror movie that builds its brooding ambiance with a skeptic outlook towards its own myth. The oddball visual trip is partly science fiction , partly witchcraft, and partly a study on the nature of faith, with some stomach-churning and gore body horror images in the mix.

The narrative revolves around bio-scientist Martin and park ranger Alma, who undertake a perilous journey into the center of the woods to find a research camp surrounded by fog and mystery. The story is confusing as it ventures into the metaphysical realm, and the reaction has thus been a bit polarizing. You may think of it one way or the other, but the ominous and ambient energy of the movie will pull you through to the end. The ending moments unfold in flashes of light and buzzing of sound, and you may miss out on some details. In that case, let us take you back to the spirited forest. SPOILERS AHEAD.

In The Earth Plot Synopsis

The onset of a deadly virus has surprised the world, and the overall mood is gloomy. Scientist Martin Lowery reaches a post outside a dense jungle near Bristol. He is tasked with meeting Dr. Olivia Wendle, his former colleague at Fashdale Institute and ex-lover. In the first scene, he is tested for the virus and comes out negative. He learns the local myth that a fabled spirit named Parnag Fegg lives in the forest. He gets some rest, and the next day, park ranger Alma comes to assist him in the hike to Dr. Wendle’s lab.

They embark upon their two-day hike, which turns out to be a sprawling and threatening journey. Martin is not as fit as he seemed during the medical test, and the hike is tiring for him. Moreover, their shoes get stolen at night in a sudden attack, and they find it difficult to walk barefooted, especially Martin. Martin wounds his foot walking, but a beguiling man named Zach approaches them. Martin and Alma trust Zach, and he seems helpful, but that is until Zach drugs them and starts making hexagrams and doing witchcraft rituals. Martin and Alma flee to fall into an even more dangerous trap.

In The Earth Ending: Is Martin Dead or Alive?

Zach initially comes off as a guy who knows what he is doing. He takes a look at the wound of Martin, carelessly disinfects him, and goes on to stitch him with a nylon thread lying around. The yarn is not sterilized, which we come to know later. Zach gives them a drink apparently made of something similar to elderflower, but the drink is not what he says it is, and the duo shortly falls unconscious. Zach takes them to another room, dresses them up, and takes ritualistic photos. When confronted, he says that the images are for appeasing the spirit of the jungle and that his ways are better than that of Wendle. Martin’s wound becomes infected after a while, and Zach goes on to perform an amputation.

By this time, Zach seems like a deranged person. When Martin pleads with Zach to take him to a hospital, Zach ignores that and cuts off half of Martin’s toes. Thankfully, Alma gets the situation under control and rescues Martin before it’s too late. Martin and Alma both run for their lives, and after striking down Alma with an arrow, Zach comes after Martin with his ax. Martin stays in the radar of the motion sensor cameras to illuminate his way, but a fog obscures their vision. In the flashing and blinding light, Zach’s silhouetted face creates an eerie ambiance.

However, Zach mysteriously retreats after a seemingly supernatural experience while Martin regroups with Alma. Moreover, they find the research site of Olivia. From Olivia, we come to know that Zach is her ex-husband, who has been lured into the region by a guiding voice in his head. Olivia deduces that Martin also has had a similar experience, and she concludes that the jungle has created a neural connection with her. She also states that there are no ways out of the jungle — that the jungle wants to keep them forever imprisoned. Alma attempts to cut through the region of dense mist created by moisture and mushroom pores but is pulled back after an episode of hallucination.

In the end, the fabled spirit apparently comes to communicate with Olivia. She needs some help to execute the experiment as recorded in the ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ and after the episode of Alma, Martin is quite happy to volunteer. Martin takes up the daunting task of communicating with the standing stone by consuming a “sacrament” (mushroom milk). Olivia does not say, and Zach divulges later that the communication procedure also needs a sacrifice. Martin is the unfortunate one chosen for sacrifice, and while Alma deals with Zach, Olivia creeps up to Martin with a knife. However, as the penultimate scene reveals, Martin is alive. Alma wakes him up and assures him to take him out of the jungle.

Are Olivia and Zach Dead?

However, the questions regarding Olivia and Zach’s final fates still linger in the audience’s mind. Alma escapes her post near the standing stone and heads back to the tent to find Olivia playing the piano in the final encounter. The room, however, is decorated with photos presumably clicked by Zach. Although separated, Olivia and Zach are in league with each other for this pantheist witchcraft ritual. Both of them seek to invoke the spirit finally. Although the audience initially thinks of Olivia as a person of science, her consultation of a witchcraft book proves us wrong.

It seems that the parted husband and wife have found middle ground in the isolated and mystical jungle. After the revelation, Alma and Zach engage in a face-off. Alma hits Zach’s eyes, and although a man who seemingly knows the ways of nature and is confident about his knowledge, Zach asks to be taken to a hospital in the final moment. As an enraged Alma bashes him, he is undoubtedly dead, but we don’t know what happens to Olivia. Alma may have killed her, or if we are to believe in the myth of the story, she has become one with nature.

Is The Forest Spirit Real?

The forested spirit is called Parnag Fegg, which roughly translates as light and sound. This is the spirit with which both Olivia and Zach are trying to communicate. The spirit rarely takes a physical form but denotes its presence in the eerie ambiance of the forest. After her visceral trip, when Alma returns to the camp, she describes the spirit in vague and discordant terms.

“It’s not what you think it is. It’s everything,” Alma says to Martin. The suggestion given in the movie is that the whole forest is a living and breathing organism. Every ecosystem is living and dynamic, but the movie is predominantly concerned with the phenomenon of mycorrhiza – interdependent and symbiotically interlinked organisms that create a sense of oneness.

They may be different trees and fungi, but they are connected through a connected network of roots. The mysteries embedded within nature manifest in visceral and horrific forms; combined with human nature to connect the dots, these mysteries shape a forest spirit in the local myth. We don’t see the spirit even once, barring the moment towards the end when the spirit comes near the camp with a burning torch, which can very well be Zach. The hallucination may be induced by a substance immersed in the mist itself, and therefore, the spirit is most definitely a creation of the superstitious mind.

Read More:  Where Was In The Earth Filmed?

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‘In the Earth’ Ending, Explained

Where to stream:.

• In the Earth

Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Feast' on VOD, a Welsh Horror Tale That Unfolds During a Doomed Dinner Party

Stream it or skip it: 'gaia' on hulu, a satisfyingly psychedelic body-horror eco-creature feature, 'in the earth' ending, explained, stream it or skip it: 'in the earth' on vod, a crazy covid horror-thriller that's ben wheatley's return to form.

Ben Wheatley ‘s Sundance darling  In the Earth   is the perfect creepy movie to stream as Halloween season begins. The forest thriller combines elements of films like  Annihilation  and  Midsommar  to elevate the chills to an all time high. Have you ever heard of Parnag Fegg? Well, you’ll be terrified of this woodland sprite by the time you’ve finished In the Earth . If you’re wondering about what Parnag Fegg means and how the spirit controls the ending of the film, we have answers. Or, rather, some ideas as to what the vague ending might suggest.

The film follows Alma (Ellora Torchia) and Martin ( Joel Fry ), a scientist and a park scout who venture into the woods to find a cure to a virus destroying humanity. But when they come in contact with the deranged Zach (Reece Shearsmith) and his bizarre ex Olivia (Hayley Squires), they begin to think the forest might actually be against them. With their companions turning, no longer fighting alongside the pair, Alma and Martin must fight for their lives against Parnag Fegg.

So, is this a “Shimmer” situation, or is there something more cult-related? Here’s everything we know about the ending of In the Earth .

What happens in the ending of  In the Earth ?

After a handful of drama unfurls with Zach, Olivia, and their obsession with Parnag Fegg, Alma and Martin decide that they must leave the forest immediately. The pair have been working in tandem the entire time, and they plan on using Martin as a human sacrifice for Parnag Fegg. Alma kills Zach while Martin has passed out, and seems to kill Olivia. With a slightly conscious Zach, Alma runs out of the forest and away from danger.

There are mushroom clouds present in the end of  In the Earth , a vague reference to the possible reality of Parnag Fegg. What could the mushroom clouds mean? Is Parnag Fegg real? Here’s what we know about the ending, explained.

What does the  In the Earth  ending mean?  In the Earth  ending, explained:

Zach and Olivia, while seemingly separated, have been working together since the start. Perhaps they’ve been driven to insanity by their solitude, or perhaps this ending suggests that Parnag Fegg is real within the  In the Earth  universe.

But how can Olivia die as the mushroom clouds begin to form as the other two escape? The forest seems to want to keep Zach and Olivia imprisoned, but somehow, they still escape. Maybe they just haven’t been hypnotized just yet, or maybe there’s a deeper meaning there — i.e., they haven’t interfered with nature enough to be imprisoned like Zach and Olivia.

Is  In the Earth  available to stream? Where to watch  In the Earth :

In the Earth  is currently available to stream on Hulu and Kanopy . If you don’t have access to either of those streamers, the film is available to rent from $1.99 and purchase from $9.99 on iTunes , Microsoft , Google Play , or Vudu .

Is there a trailer for  In the Earth ?

There is, and you can watch it by scrolling up to the video at the top of the page.

Where to watch  In The Earth

• Ending Explained
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If humans don't finish it, when will the world actually end?

It’s not just your yoghurt, even planet Earth has an expiry date.

Dr Alastair Gunn

Although likely to kill many (or all) inhabitants on our planet, an enormous asteroid or comet impact would not have the energy to destroy Earth. Nor would the explosion of a powerful supernova within a few light-years.

However, orbital instabilities in the Solar System may eventually lead to a catastrophic collision between Earth and one of the other terrestrial planets – Mercury, Venus or Mars. Yet the possibility of that happening is only about1per cent over the nextfivebillion years or so.

The most likely scenario for the total annihilation of Earth? Being engulfed into the Sun as it transforms into a ‘red giant’ star.Asthe Sun’sthermonuclear fuel, hydrogen, becomes depleted in its core,our star’souter envelope will begin to expand. In this phase of its evolution, the Sun will lose a significant amount of mass, meaning Earth’s orbit will also expand.

However, current theory suggests the new orbit won’t be large enough for the Earth to escape interaction with the lower atmosphere of the expanding Sun. This means Earth will likely still be vaporised by the growing star.

But don’t worry,this scorching destruction of Earth is a long way off: about 7.59 billion years in the future, according to some calculations.Even ifour planet somehow survives and remains in orbit around the bloated red giant Sun, Earth’s natural orbital decay means it would merge with the dead Sun’s remnant.

Eventually, anyway: this fate would occur in about 100 billion billion years. Not bad considering the Universe is only around 13 billion years old now.

Asked by: Daniel Valentine, Kent

• The thought experiment: What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?
• Could an asteroid knock Earth out of its orbit?
• Could we exist on Earth under a red giant star?
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To submit your questions email us at [email protected] (don't forget to include your name and location)

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Where does Earth end and outer space begin?

And where does outer space begin?

When mountaineers climb Mount Everest, they routinely carry oxygen cylinders, devices that allow them to breathe freely at high altitudes. This is necessary because the closer you get to the edge of Earth's atmosphere, the less oxygen there is available compared with the plentiful amounts found at sea level.

This is just one example of how variable Earth's atmosphere is and showcases the elemental makeup of its layers, from the troposphere, near sea level, to the exosphere, in its outermost regions. Where each layer ends and begins is defined by four key traits, according to the National Weather Service : temperature change, chemical composition, density and the movement of the gases within it. 

So, with this in mind, where does Earth's atmosphere actually end? And where does space begin?

Related: How much water is in Earth's atmosphere?

Each of the atmosphere's layers plays a role in ensuring our planet can host all manner of life, doing everything from blocking cancer-causing cosmic radiation to creating the pressure required to produce water , according to NASA.

"As you get farther from Earth , the atmosphere becomes less dense," Katrina Bossert, a space physicist at Arizona State University, told Live Science in an email. "The composition also changes, and lighter atoms and molecules begin to dominate, while heavy molecules remain closer to the Earth's surface."

As you move up in the atmosphere, the pressure, or the weight of the atmosphere above you, weakens rapidly. Even though commercial planes have pressurized cabins, rapid changes in altitude can affect the slim eustachian tubes connecting the ear with the nose and throat. "This is why your ears may pop during takeoff in an airplane," said Matthew Igel, an adjunct professor of atmospheric science at the University of California, Davis.

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Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Eventually, the air becomes too thin for conventional aircraft to fly at all, with such craft not able to generate enough lift. This is the area scientists have decreed marks our atmosphere's end, and space's beginning. It's known as the Kármán line, named after Theodore von Kármán, a Hungarian American physicist who, in 1957, became the first person to attempt to define the boundary between Earth and outer space, according to EarthSky .

This line, given it marks the boundary between Earth and space, not only denotes where an aircraft's limits lie, but is also crucial for scientists and engineers when figuring out how to keep spacecraft and satellites orbiting Earth successfully. "The Kármán line is an approximate region that denotes the altitude above which satellites will be able to orbit the Earth without burning up or falling out of orbit before circling Earth at least once," Bossert said. 

"It is typically defined as 100 kilometers [62 miles] above Earth," Igel added. "It is possible for something to orbit the Earth at altitudes below the Kármán line, but it would require extremely high orbital velocity, which would be hard to maintain due to friction. But nothing forbids it.  

"Therein lies the sense one should have for the Kármán line: It is an imaginary but practical threshold between air travel and space travel," he said. 

Various factors, such as the satellite's size and shape, play a part in determining how much air resistance it will experience and, consequently, its ability to orbit Earth successfully, according to Bossert. Typically, satellites that are in low Earth orbit — a classification that tends to be given to satellites at an altitude of less than 621 miles (1,000 km) but sometimes as low as 99 miles (160 km) above Earth, according to the European Space Agency — will fall out of orbit after a few years, Bossert said, due to "drag from the Earth's upper atmosphere gradually slowing down orbital speed." 

Related: How fast does the Earth move?

However, that doesn't mean Earth's atmosphere is undetectable beyond 621 miles.

"The atmosphere doesn't just disappear once you get into the region where satellites orbit," Bossert said. "It is thousands and thousands of kilometers away before evidence of Earth's atmosphere is gone. The very outer atoms from Earth's atmosphere, the hydrogen atoms that make up its geocorona [the outermost region of the atmosphere], can even extend beyond the moon ."  

— What messages have we sent to aliens?

— How big is the universe?

— What's the most massive object in the universe?

So, if someone were to reach the Kármán line, would they notice anything? Would they be aware that they were, essentially, straddling the boundary between Earth and space? Not really. "Nothing really changes," Bossert said. Igel agreed. "The line is not physical, per se, and so one would not notice crossing it, nor does it have any thickness," he said.

What about being able to survive, even for a brief period, at the Kármán line? What if you were dropped there without a bespoke spacesuit or a mountaineering style oxygen tank? If you could get to it, would you be able to breathe at such a high altitude? And could birds ever reach such heights?

"In principle, flight is still possible all the way up to the Kármán line," Igel said. "In practice, however, animals cannot survive at altitudes above the 'Armstrong limit,' which is around 20 km [12 miles] above the surface, where pressures are so low that liquid in the lungs boils."

Originally published on Live Science.

Joe Phelan is a journalist based in London. His work has appeared in VICE, National Geographic, World Soccer and The Blizzard, and has been a guest on Times Radio. He is drawn to the weird, wonderful and under examined, as well as anything related to life in the Arctic Circle. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Chester. 

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, in the earth.

Now streaming on:

"In the Earth" is a film made for midnight showings. It's ominous, brutal, pretentious, and often stirring. Even though some sections feel rushed and it falls apart at the end, every part of it is memorable. Set mostly in gloomy fairy-tale woodlands, where representatives of science are terrorized by forces both human and uncanny, this is a low-budget thriller that carries itself with the swagger of a larger production. Writer/director Ben Wheatley  combines science fiction, horror, and the supernatural, with nods to milestones in cinema style, particularly Stanley Kubrick's " 2001: A Space Odyssey " and " The Shining ." But the unifying inspiration appears to be that of a grungy, icky 1970s horror flick—the kind that doubles as an endurance test—a film like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," " The Last House on the Left ," and "Halloween" that viewers leave feeling exhilarated or brutalized, depending on their tolerance for cinema of extremes. 

Dr. Martin Lowery ( Joel Fry ), who has been isolated during a pandemic and craves human contact, goes into the woods with park ranger Alma ( Ellora Torchia ) to locate his colleague Dr. Olivia Wendle ( Hayley Squires ), who shares an undiscussed, deep bond with Martin, and has been unreachable since switching off her radio. Olivia's work is meant to improve crop growth efficiency. She is convinced that all plant life is interconnected through a sort of psychic neural network and can talk amongst itself, and to us.

The mission goes bad immediately. Alma and Martin are brutalized and knocked unconscious in the woods soon after their arrival, with Martin suffering a foot wound that will get worse and more disgusting as the story unfolds. Much of the film is a hostage drama, with the duo falling into the clutches of a creepy loner named Zach ( Reece Shearsmith ), who brutalizes them with the aplomb of Leatherface's family or Jigsaw from the " Saw " movies. When the movie brings Olivia into the story, following a protracted, almost Kurtz-like buildup, she turns out to be as unsettling as Zach. You can tell by Squires' unnerving line delivery and facial expressions (somehow, she's both droll and menacing) that in her own way, Olivia is just as unhinged.

Without disclosing specifics, let's call this one a wilderness survival drama, with elements of slasher and body horror cinema and undercurrents of pre-Christian mythology and ooga-booga bedtime stories. The first act feels a bit like a European arthouse cinema head-scratcher that aims to ponder the fate of humanity in the age of extinction-level threats (most of them being our own collective fault) but that makes sure to throw ultra-violence and gnomic mysticism into the mix, as an audience engagement insurance policy. It's as if Wheatley had seen Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker" (one of the great lost-in-the-magic-woods movies, as well as a towering work of philosophy and ethics) and thought, "This film would be even better if it had an actual stalker in it." And so the fragility of flesh takes center-screen and we're treated to many closeups of bleeding, torn, mangled body parts. The visuals are obsessed with openings and orifices and eye-like shapes, many discovered in woodland panoramas, others created within the landscape of the body itself.

We're also warned from the start that Olivia's work focuses on the uncommonly fertile soil in the forest, so we prime ourselves for the possibility that we're going to get invasive fungus action (the hero even tells us that he had ringworm recently). The film delivers on this promise, though not in the way you might expect. One character rephrases the famous observation that, to members of primitive civilizations, high technology is indistinguishable from magic. 

From that point on, "In the Earth" conflates modern scientific research and theory with ancient rituals meant to communicate with (and appease) Parnag Fegg, an ancient eldritch force that may have summoned all the humans to the woods in the first place. There's a touch of John Carpenter's " Prince of Darkness " in the script's exposition-heavy lore, which postulates that science might eventually find a way to perfect the approximations of scripture, ritual, and spell-casting.

All of this stuff connects rather glancingly, or vaguely. For the most part, that's good cinema praxis (better to leave the audience guessing or a bit confused than explain every little thing to death), but still there are times when it seems as if Wheatley is fudging things, like a magician who asks "Is this your card?" and then takes it away just fast enough that you can't be sure. Razzle-dazzle flash-cuts, disorienting jump cuts, and incessant strobe effects amplify dread and confusion in the film's most intense scenes. There's a lot of screaming and crying and lot of pain, and it would all be unbearable if Wheatley didn't exhibit such mordant wit. He's constantly setting up scenes where you know exactly which horrible thing might happen to one of the characters, then making you wait for it, and wait for it, through false starts, digressions, and clumsy mistakes that require a do-over. And when it finally does happen: wow .

Where the film fails as a substantive statement about this or that or the other thing, it succeeds as a visceral exercise in audience torment. Throughout, Wheatley observes a horror movie version of Chekhov’s principle, where you can assume that the rifle hanging on the wall of a set isn't just there for atmosphere. This movie features Chekhov’s Hatchet, Chekhov’s Bow and Arrow, Chekhov’s Fungus, and Chekhov’s Guitar (used to lull characters to sleep through repetitive phrases that hit them like incantations). Like another low-budget 2021 film, " Lapsis ," it uses nature's splendors to give a small movie an epic feeling, and its skill at making you squirm suggests that, for all its poker-faced wonderment over the machinations of the universe, Wheatley identifies most strongly with Zach, a grandiloquent sadist who has a captive audience where he wants them and revels in that fact. After a certain point, I stopped finding the ostentatious, close-up brutality funny and started howling at it, and my experiences with some of Wheatley's other movies (particuarly " Kill List " and " Free Fire ") confirm that not only is he OK with that sort of reaction, he thrives on it. 

Special citations are due to cinematographer Nick Gillespie , whose widescreen images use expressionist  primary colors (particularly verdant green and purgatorial red) and put fog and flame to brilliant use; and to Clint Mansell's synthesized score—one of the best he's ever done, and so clearly indebted to director-composer John Carpenter's scores for his own films that when you see the soft-spoken lunatic Zach trudging across fern-carpeted earth, his long, greying locks swaying around his face, it momentarily seems as if the characters are being pursued by John Carpenter himself. 

Now playing in select theaters. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

In the Earth (2021)

Rated R for strong violent content, grisly images, and language.

107 minutes

Joel Fry as Martin Lowery

Ellora Torchia as Alma

Hayley Squires as Dr. Olivia Wendle

Reece Shearsmith as Zach Whitehead

John Hollingworth as Lord James Karel

Mark Monero as Dr. Frank Jarrek

• Ben Wheatley

Cinematographer

• Nick Gillespie
• Clint Mansell

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Forget the North Pole—This Is the Real End of the Earth

By Ken Jennings

Explorers and armchair explorers alike have long been fascinated by " poles of inaccessibility ." These are the places on the Earth's surface that are equally far from anything, the literal middle of nowhere. On land, they're the points on each continent farthest from any ocean. In the oceans, they're the places that are as far as you can get from dry land . Now one explorer is trying to reach Earth's "last pole"—but time is running out.

This is the real end of the Earth

The Earth's northernmost pole of inaccessibility, the dead center of the Arctic Ocean, has long been of interest to adventurers. Why? Because it's there. The geographic North Pole is 450 miles north of Greenland, but the Arctic pole of inaccessibility is even more remote—almost 200 miles farther out on the ice. It's the ultimate challenge for a polar explorer. British researcher Jim McNeill has called this spot the "unconquered Everest" of the Arctic.

Finding the middle of an Arctic circle

The easiest way to think about a pole of inaccessibility is in terms of radii; it's a point that's precisely equidistant from three faraway coastlines. The Arctic pole, for example, is exactly 626 miles from three different islands: Ellesmere Island at the northern tip of Canada, Komsomolets Island in Russia's Severanaya Zemlya archipelago, and Henrietta Island in the East Siberian Sea. In other words, if you were to draw the biggest circle possible that the Arctic Ocean can contain, this "pole" is the point at its dead center.

Bad math has kept the "other North Pole" completely deserted

Getting to a point six hundred miles out on the polar ice requires weeks of hiking or dogsledding. British explorer Wally Herbert thought he'd reached it in 1968 on his way to the North Pole. But in 2013, a Colorado researcher named Ted Scambos used satellite data to confirm that Herbert's calculations had been wrong, as the Arctic coastline was so imprecisely mapped back then. The real pole of inaccessibility is 133 miles away from where Herbert planted his flag—and no one's ever been there.

Wanted: 28 friends with $25,000 each and no fear of polar bears

Jim McNeill is determined to be the first to reach the dead center of the Arctic, which he calls "the last significant place on Earth as yet unreached by mankind." His last two expeditions have come up short; in 2003, he was sidelined by flesh-eating bacteria on his ankle, and in 2006 he fell through thinning ice and had to turn back on day 17. But McNeill is determined to return next winter, and has started a project called Ice Warrior to recruit and train twenty-eight volunteers to come with him. He suspects this might be humanity's last chance at reaching this "Last Pole." Global warming means a day is coming when there won't be enough sea ice to make the journey possible—except by boat.

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Biden announced a cease-fire plan for the war in Gaza. Here’s what to know.

The three-phase plan includes the release of remaining hostages, Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, a surge in aid and a path to a permanent end to hostilities.

A plan announced by President Biden for a “durable end to the war” has renewed hope for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that has proved elusive for months. Biden described it as a comprehensive Israeli proposal, following intensive diplomacy and his conversations with leaders from Qatar, Egypt, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries.

Israel’s military operations in Gaza, now in their eighth month, have displaced 75 percent of its population and left parts of the enclave battling with famine amid catastrophic humanitarian conditions, the United Nations says. More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry , which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and about 252 taken hostage . During a pause in fighting in November, 105 hostages, including foreign nationals, were released as part of a deal.

Here’s what to know about the latest three-phase cease-fire proposal as described on Friday by Biden and his officials:

The first phase — lasting six weeks — would bring a full and complete cease-fire and include Israeli withdrawal from all populated areas in Gaza. Female, elderly and wounded hostages in Gaza would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, Biden said. The remaining American hostages in Gaza would be released in this phase, Biden added, and some remains of the killed hostages would be returned.

Displaced Palestinian civilians would be allowed to return to their homes in all areas of Gaza. There would be a surge in humanitarian aid, with 600 trucks entering the enclave daily, according to the plan. The cease-fire would ensure that the aid is “safely and effectively distributed” to those in need, Biden said.

Negotiations will continue during this phase to bring a “permanent end to hostilities” in phase two, he added.

In his statement, Biden acknowledged that there are details that needed to be worked out to move to the second phase. But the cease-fire will continue if negotiations extended beyond the six weeks, he said.

The second phase would see the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza, including male soldiers, Biden said, and Israeli forces would withdraw all forces from Gaza.

If adhered to, the temporary cease-fire would become a “cessation of hostilities permanently,” he added.

Phase three

Any final remains of killed hostages would be returned in the third phase, which would include a massive internationally-backed reconstruction plan for Gaza, Biden said. Israeli airstrikes and ground invasion have laid to waste large swaths of the enclave and flattened entire city blocks, The Washington Post has reported.

A senior Biden administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, described this phase as an extensive three-to-five year program of rehabilitation and stabilization of Gaza.

“It’s time to begin this new stage, for the hostages to come home, for Israel to be secure, for the suffering to stop,” Biden said. “It’s time for this war to end and for the day after to begin.”

Israel-Gaza war

The Israel-Gaza war has gone on for six months, and tensions have spilled into the surrounding region .

The war: On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel that included the taking of civilian hostages at a music festival . (See photos and videos of how the deadly assault unfolded ). Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948 .

Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars , killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “ famine-like conditions. ” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave .

U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians , including President Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons , funds aid packages , and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ cease-fire resolutions.

History: The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mistrust are deep and complex, predating the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 . Read more on the history of the Gaza Strip .

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Some Gazans Call on Hamas to Accept Cease-Fire Proposal, But Remain Skeptical

After months of bombardment, many in Gaza believe Hamas should make any compromise necessary to end the war.

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By Bilal Shbair and Hiba Yazbek

• June 4, 2024 Updated 12:42 p.m. ET

Some Palestinians in Gaza expressed hope that peace talks might advance after President Biden endorsed an Israeli road map toward a permanent cease-fire and called on Hamas to accept the plan. But many remained skeptical that U.S. influence would help bring an immediate end to the war and their suffering.

After eight months of devastating bombardment, many in Gaza believe Hamas should make any compromise necessary to end the war and allow rebuilding to begin.

“I am hopeful that Hamas will accept this deal,” said Ayman Skeik, a 31-year-old merchant from Gaza City who was displaced to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. “But I am still scared it would not be achieved.”

Declaring Hamas no longer capable of carrying out a major terrorist attack on Israel, President Biden said on Friday that it was time for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and endorsed a new plan he said Israel had offered to win the release of hostages and work toward a permanent end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza.

Hamas has said it was responding “positively,” but has kept Palestinians in suspense for days about whether it would formally agree. On Tuesday, Sami Abu Zuhri, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, accused the Netanyahu government of not being serious about reaching a deal. He said Mr. Biden was pressuring his group to accept the plan “despite the White House knowing that the problem lies with” Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel — who remains under pressure from far-right members of his coalition opposed to the deal — has neither publicly accepted nor rejected the proposal, but he has insisted that Israel will not end the war without the “destruction” of Hamas’s governing and military capabilities.

Like many other Gazans, Mr. Skeik said that he had grown frustrated after several rounds of cease-fire negotiations fell through in the past. Previous American, Qatari and Egyptian efforts to bring both sides to an agreement have faltered, with Mr. Biden suggesting in February that a cease-fire was imminent, even as Hamas and Israel continued to remain far apart.

“The United States used to have a strong word when it wanted to stop any crisis in the world,” he said. “But nowadays, I see a different thing.”

The first phase of the proposal laid out by Biden calls for both sides to observe a temporary six-week cease-fire, while continuing to negotiate to reach a permanent one. That scared Mr. Skeik, who said that without an immediate permanent cease-fire, he was worried the fighting would continue after or even during the first phase.

“I want to get back to my old life,” he said from a cafe where he can connect to the internet. But Mr. Skeik was worried that Hamas would nitpick the language and drag out negotiations, which would further forestall the possibility of him going home.

“We want Hamas to sign this deal to maintain a long-term peace and cease-fire for us and our children to live in peace and safety,” said Anas al-Borno, a 36-year-old businessman from Gaza City who was displaced with his family to Deir al-Balah. But he was “still hopeless and pessimistic,” that Israel and Hamas would both agree to the deal, he added.

Some praised Mr. Biden for his speech last week, in which the president laid out details of the Israeli plan. It was an unusual move to speak for another country , and appeared to be a move to further pressure Mr. Netanyahu after months of American admonitions.

“I think what Biden said on TV was a sudden change for me and many other people,” said Ahmed al-Masri, a 21-year-old dentistry student from Gaza City. “The United States has chosen the route of surprises recently so I hope this comes true and is real,” he added.

But others doubted it would mean much.

“The United States must impose solutions to all sides, not just propose and suggest ideas,” said Raed al-Kelani, 47, a civil servant from northern Gaza. He added that although he believed President Biden could press both Hamas and Mr. Netanyahu to agree to the deal, he was “only 50 percent optimistic.”

Hiba Yazbek reports for The Times from Jerusalem, covering Israel and the occupied West Bank. More about Hiba Yazbek

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Two of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right partners threatened to bring down his government  should Israel agree to a cease-fire deal that would end the war in Gaza without eliminating Hamas.

Netanyahu has been put on the spot by President Biden’s announcement  outlining a proposal for a truce. Now the Israeli leader faces a stark choice .

Israel defied ominous warnings from Egypt and took control of a buffer zone on the Egypt-Gaza border. But the reaction from Cairo has been muted .

A Debate at Holocaust Museums: The Israel-Hamas war has also forced Holocaust museums to confront one of the most emotional and divisive issues within the Jewish community: how to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .

In the West Bank: Since the war in Gaza began, armed Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied territory, often accompanied by the army, have stepped up seizures of land long used by Palestinians .

A Fateful Encounter: In an Israeli prison infirmary, a Jewish dentist came to the aid of a desperately ill Hamas inmate. Years later, the prisoner became a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack .

Getting Relatives Out: For Americans racing to evacuate their family members from Gaza, the closure of the Rafah border crossing into Egypt — the only way out for civilians — has thrown an already complicated system into disarray .

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EU finance ministers to discuss leveraging Russian assets on Wednesday

European Union finance ministers will hold a videoconference on Wednesday on a G7 proposal to leverage Russian central bank assets immobilised in the West to allow Kyiv swiftly to receive a loan of around $50 billion, senior euro zone officials said.