Study reveals ‘death date' of the universe before ‘Big Crunch' occurs
That is according to researchers who have published a new study claiming that our once-believed ever-expanding universe will actually begin to shrink in seven billion years.
The study, which was published by physicists from Cornell University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and other institutions, suggests that the universe will reach a peak size.
After that point, the universe will begin contracting until everything collapses back into a single point.
It's essentially a reverse Big Bang, which scientists have dubbed the 'Big Crunch'.
Using data from a number of astronomical surveys including the Dark Energy Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, the researchers predict that this 'Big Crunch' will occur in approximately 33.3 billion years.
With the universe currently 13.8 billion years old, this gives Earth and everything else roughly 20 billion years before entering oblivion, according to the study.
And considering the Earth is expected to be engulfed by our dying sun in approximately seven billion years, it's probably not something anyone will have to worry about too much.
The theory is that the universe expands like a 'rubber band' – eventually, the elastic force becomes stronger than the expansion, causing everything to snap back together.
The researchers' theory hinges on dark energy, a mysterious force that makes up about 70 per cent of the known universe.
Dark energy has long been believed to be the driving force behind the expansion of the universe.
However, recent observations suggest the force might actually be dynamic – meaning it can only expand so much until it shrinks again.
The new model proposed by researchers suggests the universe will continue expanding but at a gradually slowing rate.
At its maximum size, about 69 per cent larger than the size it is today, a gradual contraction will begin.
Several major astronomical projects launching in the coming years aim to provide more information on the behaviour of dark energy.
These missions could confirm or rule out a 'Big Crunch' scenario.
Even if the terrifying outcome is confirmed, a 20 billion year countdown is hardly a reason to panic.
For context, complex life on Earth has existed for only about 600 million years – a fraction of time in comparison.
20 billion years down the line, the Sun will have died and our galaxy will have collided with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy long before 'the great end'.
The prediction also comes with a significant level of uncertainty.
The researchers have acknowledged that their model has large margins of error due to limited observational data.
So, alternative scenarios – including eternal expansion – are still possible.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
16 hours ago
- News.com.au
How long should you really take to pee? Scientists have an answer
It turns out there really is an answer to the question: 'How long should I pee?' You might not think much about the time you spend on the loo. But according to researchers, there's an average 'just right' duration for a healthy wee – and it's linked to your overall health. The magic trickling number is 21 seconds. Long enough to hum the chorus of Happy Birthday but not quite long enough for Bohemian Rhapsody. This '21-second rule' has come from a group of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, who developed the 'Law of Urination'. And, while it sounds like a fun pub trivia fact, it actually reveals a surprising truth about how our bodies work, and why big changes in your bathroom habits could signal something is up. The science behind the 21-second Law of Urination Researchers at Georgia Tech set out to answer a deceptively simple question: how do animals of vastly different sizes manage such similar bathroom times? They spent their days streaming (see what I did there) and timing clips of animals emptying their bladders. They discovered that mammals weighing over about 3 kilograms tend to take around 21 seconds to urinate, no matter their size beyond that threshold. How is that even possible? It's all about physics. Larger animals have longer and wider urethras. The extra length increases gravitational pressure, pushing urine out faster, while the wider diameter reduces resistance. The result: even though an elephant's bladder holds many times more than a dog's, both can finish in roughly the same time. Evolution seems to have finetuned mammalian plumbing for efficient emptying in about 20 seconds. What it means for humans Humans fit this pattern, too. Most adults typically take around 20–25 seconds to fully empty their bladders at a normal, relaxed pace. Health professionals sometimes refer to this '21-second rule' as a loose benchmark. Don't start taking a stopwatch with you to twinkle, but big changes in how long you take to pee can be worth noting. Consistently much shorter durations, especially with frequent urges, might indicate an overactive bladder or other urinary issues. Taking much longer could suggest urinary retention, prostate enlargement in men, or nerve-related problems. Holding it in too long can also overstretch the bladder over time, increasing the risk of infections and other complications While 21 seconds isn't a rigid rule for everyone, significant changes from your normal pattern can be an early sign to check in with your doctor. Something to keep in mind the next time nature calls.
ABC News
17 hours ago
- ABC News
David Cronenberg made The Shrouds as a way to process the grief over his wife's death
Body horror is having a moment, while its dad has a phone in front of his face. The gushing critical and cultural success of The Substance — the first body horror nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars — is just the tip of a resurgence, following the likes of Fresh, A Different Man, Infinity Pool, Malignant and Palme d'Or winner Titane. Fast Facts about The Shrouds What: Necrophilic-leaning tech CEO misses his dead wife. Starring: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce Directed by: David Cronenberg Where: In cinemas now Likely to make you feel: Unsettled and cold (whether that's positive will depend on you) The biggest signifier of the genre's resurgence, though, was 2022's Crimes of The Future, the long-awaited return to body horror from David Cronenburg — the man who defined the genre in the 70s and 80s with The Fly, Videodrome and Scanners among others. Despite Crime's acclaim, Cronenberg has again shifted away from body horror with his follow-up The Shrouds, a relatively restrained and cold drama — despite a crazed premise. Even if it's not filled with the squelches and screams of a body keeping, ignoring or sublimating to the score, it will leave you deeply affected — if you can accept its stilted dialogue and convoluted plot as purposeful. The Shrouds follows Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a grieving widow who founded GraveTech — a cemetery that offers grievers a live-streamed image of their loved ones' decomposing corpse, viewable in 3D and 8K from a tombstone screen, after logging in via an app. GraveTech is a nascent tech start-up, with only a dozen or so clients, and the Toronto graveyard doubling as a showroom. At its centre is a sleek restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows, resembling an austere contemporary art gallery with outdoor activations. At the film's beginning, Karsh takes a blind date there and, after a subdued lunch, shows her the live footage of his late wife Becca's (Diane Kruger) skeleton while they stand before her grave, calling it "digital penetration". She's repulsed and soon leaves. But before she does, she can't help but revert her gaze to his stream, remarking how the footage — a high-tech shroud over the body, which renders corpses as though floating through space — is somewhat beautiful. "It has drained away the fluid of grief that was drowning me," says Karsh. "That was killing me." Not exactly first date material — and neither is The Shrouds, though there's romance hiding deep within. When the cemetery is vandalised, Karsh, Becca's sister Terry (also Kruger) and Terry's ex-husband Maury (Guy Pearce) are consumed by conspiracies, investigating whether strange growths on Becca's skeleton suggest a medical cover-up or interference from China, Russia or some other shadowy force. Despite the premise, Cronenberg bills The Shrouds as his most personal work ever. Now 82, he wrote the screenplay after his long-term wife, the filmmaker Carolyn Zeifman, died in 2017. With short white hair and a gangly intensity, Karsh is clearly a proxy for Cronenberg. It's also clear that Karsh is consumed by grief — and it often emerges via a desire for Becca's body, whether looking at her skeleton, her identical sister, or through dreams where Becca appears naked, increasingly scarred and amputated by surgeries. But Karsh's necrophilic impulses are at odds with The Shrouds' sense of cleanliness: It's hard to imagine him or the film with dirt under their nails, let alone digging through the earth. This is a deeply clinical visual world, far removed from the visceral sounds and throbbing violence of, say, his 1999 film Existenz. There's a tech-world cleanliness to Karsh's life, which is designed to be as frictionless as possible — from his nondescript wardrobe, to his self-driving Tesla, to his AI personal assistant Hunny (also voiced by Kruger). Together with the production designer Carol Spier, cinematographer Douglas Koch creates a pristine Toronto closer to the quiet luxury sheen of Succession than any of Cronenberg's more surreal works. It approaches blandness, but that seems to be the point, given The Shrouds is fixated on screens. Where most filmmakers try to avoid shooting characters staring at their phones or at least explore different ways to shoot, Cronenberg has gone verité when it comes to how often Karsh is on a laptop, phone or tablet. Not only are there several elongated scenes where Karsh talks with Hunny — who is as visually soulless as a Metaverse avatar — but we're often shown footage on iPhones, with Koch holding the frame on a hand holding the screen. The videos shown are, true-to-life, often poorly shot, with ugly or obstructive angles of scenes, where faces are cut off in favour of their torso. It'll be followed by a technically wonderful shot, with gorgeous lighting and framing, but of a self-driving Tesla, no life present. Dialogue, too, is ceaseless and often stilted — given Pearce, Cassel and Kruger's previous work, it's hard to believe they weren't encouraged into jarring, awkward line reads. Combined, the janky, occasionally ugly elements of The Shrouds give the film its own dream-like atmosphere, both banal and deeply strange. If The Shrouds was a debut film, it might be hard to give it so much grace, and many people won't have the patience to, finding it too austere and removed for a film about grief. But Cronenberg could have easily created a visceral, violent body horror about grief. Instead, late into his career, he's making something much more daring. By sitting in the visual horror of a tech-sanitised world, where texture and substance is erased in favour of ease, The Shrouds has a technical unease to it, as if something is missing. Cronenberg recently said he "lost the will to make movies" after Zeifman died. And while he proved that he could create an excellent return-to-form just two years ago with Crimes of The Future, nothing quite works here. That might make it one of the most quietly profound films about grief he could make.
News.com.au
17 hours ago
- News.com.au
Study reveals ‘death date' of the universe before ‘Big Crunch' occurs
Time to get your affairs in order — we only have 20 billion years left. That is according to researchers who have published a new study claiming that our once-believed ever-expanding universe will actually begin to shrink in seven billion years. The study, which was published by physicists from Cornell University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and other institutions, suggests that the universe will reach a peak size. After that point, the universe will begin contracting until everything collapses back into a single point. It's essentially a reverse Big Bang, which scientists have dubbed the 'Big Crunch'. Using data from a number of astronomical surveys including the Dark Energy Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, the researchers predict that this 'Big Crunch' will occur in approximately 33.3 billion years. With the universe currently 13.8 billion years old, this gives Earth and everything else roughly 20 billion years before entering oblivion, according to the study. And considering the Earth is expected to be engulfed by our dying sun in approximately seven billion years, it's probably not something anyone will have to worry about too much. The theory is that the universe expands like a 'rubber band' – eventually, the elastic force becomes stronger than the expansion, causing everything to snap back together. The researchers' theory hinges on dark energy, a mysterious force that makes up about 70 per cent of the known universe. Dark energy has long been believed to be the driving force behind the expansion of the universe. However, recent observations suggest the force might actually be dynamic – meaning it can only expand so much until it shrinks again. The new model proposed by researchers suggests the universe will continue expanding but at a gradually slowing rate. At its maximum size, about 69 per cent larger than the size it is today, a gradual contraction will begin. Several major astronomical projects launching in the coming years aim to provide more information on the behaviour of dark energy. These missions could confirm or rule out a 'Big Crunch' scenario. Even if the terrifying outcome is confirmed, a 20 billion year countdown is hardly a reason to panic. For context, complex life on Earth has existed for only about 600 million years – a fraction of time in comparison. 20 billion years down the line, the Sun will have died and our galaxy will have collided with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy long before 'the great end'. The prediction also comes with a significant level of uncertainty. The researchers have acknowledged that their model has large margins of error due to limited observational data. So, alternative scenarios – including eternal expansion – are still possible.
