Space & Astronomy

The universe will end much sooner than expected, new study finds

By T.K. Randall
May 13, 2025

Image: Milky Way Galaxy Seen From Amphu Laptsa Base Camp
Credit: Pravin Mishra / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Exactly how and when the universe will end has long remained one of the biggest questions in physics, with most scientists these days agreeing that the cosmos will eventually decay and everything it - including stars, nebulae and even black holes - will ultimately die out and evaporate into nothingness.

Up until now, a generally agreed upon figure for how long this will take to happen was 10^1100 years (that's 1 followed by 1100 zeroes), but now three Dutch scientists have come up with a new figure and it suggests that the death of the universe will happen much sooner than this.

The key to their research was the recent discovery that neutron stars and other objects can evaporate via a process akin to Hawking radiation and not just black holes as was previously believed.

By recalculating how long this would take for everything in the cosmos, the scientists were able to come up with a much lower (though still huge) figure of 10^78 years."So the ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time," said study lead author Heino Falcke.

There are still many unanswered questions about the fate of the universe.

For example, what happens to it after 'death' ?

Is the universe cyclical ? Will it be born again in a new Big Bang ?

Whatever the case, it's not something that anyone alive today is ever going to have to worry about.

Source: Phys.org

Tags: Universe