Cosmic catastrophe: scientists predict the imminent demise of the Universe

A new study by scientists is challenging long-held beliefs about the lifespan of the universe. According to a new theory, the end of the cosmos could come much sooner than previously thought — in about 10 billion years.

This is stated in the Live Science article.

There are currently two main hypotheses in astronomy about the fate of the Universe. The first, the so-called “Big Freeze” theory, predicts that the Universe will expand infinitely, with stars gradually dying out, cooling to absolute zero. The second, the “Big Crunch” theory, predicts that after a period of expansion, the Universe will begin to contract until it collapses into a new Big Bang.

Scientists are still unable to determine which of these models is correct. The main reason is uncertainty in measurements of the expansion rate of the universe, a phenomenon that has been called the “cosmological crisis.”

To solve this puzzle, researchers are searching for the exact value of the cosmological constant — a special “magic number” that describes the rate of expansion. But to do that, they need to unravel the nature of dark energy — the mysterious force that is believed to be driving the expansion of the universe.

A paper recently published on the arXiv preprint server, analyzing new data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), suggests that dark energy may consist of axions, hypothetical ultralight particles that interact with matter almost invisibly.

If this is confirmed, the cosmological constant will have a negative value, leading to the Big Crunch scenario — and it will occur sooner than previously thought.

New estimates put the total lifespan of the universe at about 33 billion years. Given that it is now about 13.8 billion years old, that means a significant portion of its existence has already passed.

If this model is correct, the expansion of the universe will stop after about 10 billion years, after which it will begin to contract rapidly. This process will be much more intense than previous theories, which predicted the Big Bang only after hundreds of billions of years.

However, the nature of dark energy still remains a mystery, so all these assumptions are theoretical in nature.

This isn’t the first study to suggest an early start to the Big Crunch. For example, in 2022, scientists suggested that the expansion of the universe could stop in as little as 100 million years.

On the other hand, if the Big Freeze scenario, which Albert Einstein supported, turns out to be correct, the universe will last an extremely long time—about 1 quintwinguintillion years (a number with 78 zeros).

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