A new paper predicts that the universe’s expected lifespan is dramatically shorter than once thought, and that the universe will die in just 10 billion years.
But this is just one possible theory, but no one really knows when the universe will end.
There are two main theories about how the universe dies. The “big freeze” theory suggests that the universe continues to expand until all stars lose energy and cools to absolute zero. And the “big crunch” theory suggests that the expansion of the universe is temporary and begins to shrink after a certain point in time, eventually collapse in the reversed Big Bang. Scientists have struggled to agree which is more likely, as recent observations reveal uncertainty about how quickly the universe is expanding.
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One way to resolve this crisis is to uncover the true value of the cosmological constant, the theoretical “magic number” that can be used to calculate the expansion of the universe. But to do this, we first need to reveal the elusive identity of dark energy. This is a mysterious force or material that appears to drive the expansion of the universe.
To that end, in a new paper uploaded to Preprint Server Arxiv, which has not yet been peer-reviewed on June 30, the researchers looked into recent findings from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Semproscopic Instrument (DESI).
The axis is a hypothetical ultralight particle that rarely interacts with material. If they exist, it means that the cosmological constants have negative values, which leads to a large crunch, the researchers argued. And their calculations show that this happens faster than expected.
Related: 10 Wild Theories about the Universe
Using a new model for the Big Crunch, researchers estimate that the total lifespan of the universe is approximately 33 billion years. Given that the universe is currently thought to be around 13.8 billion years old, this means that the universe has already completed more than a third of its total life.
If the new timeline is correct, the universe will halt expansion in about 10 billion years and will begin to shrink much faster than other models have previously predicted, reported recently Space.com, a sister site for Live Science. Other models suggest that large crunches may not occur over hundreds of millions of years.
The true identity of dark energy remains a mystery, but the new model means that it is purely theoretical.
Other possible timelines
This is not the first study to suggest that large crunches may start to occur earlier than expected. In 2022, researchers proposed that the universe could stop expansion in just 100 million years.
But if the universe ends with a big freeze, which was the preferred scenario Albert Einstein instead, that death will come much later.
Recent research shows that Big Freeze is likely to be the latest Quinvigintillion (one followed by 78 zeros) or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 It has been suggested that this will remain at ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Other theories suggest that the expansion of the universe can suddenly be reversed over and over again, complicating the potential time frame for either scenario. Stephen Hawking’s research on black holes also suggested that everything in the universe could evaporate before either scenario unfolds.
Some experts further suggest that our universe could be one of many reincarnations of the infinite cycle of big bangs and big bouncing. These essentially make the Cosmos immortal. Others suggest that the universe is a simulation or a hologram, raising the question of whether it is “real” at all.
The only thing most researchers can agree on is that it can take a very long time to know who is right.
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