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Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mirror
'Death date' of the universe unveiled as scientists say clock ticking for Earth
Physicists from Cornell University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have detailed how the universe will come to an end and how it will be like a 'reverse Big Bang' A 'death date' for the universe has been revealed as a new study has claimed that the universe will begin to shrink seven billion years from now. Scientists have stated that the clock is ticking for planet Earth after it reached its peak size, and things will start to contract until 'everything collapses back into a single point'. The theory has just been published by physicists from Cornell University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The catastrophic event has been dubbed the Big Crunch - and likened to a reverse Big Bang. They studied data from various astronomical surveys including the Dark Energy Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. But it seems the universe will take quite some time to shrink. The so called Big Crunch will take place in approximately 34 billion years, so there's plenty of time to get your affairs in order. But anyone still around by that point faces a tricky time - the universe will expand like a "rubber band", they outline, causing everything to "snap back together". According to other research, there could be nobody left to experience it. Earth will be "engulfed by our dying sun" in approximately seven billion years. But Sir Isaac Newton predicted we've got not much time left at all - he said the world will end in 2060 in a chilling letter scrawled above a maths calculation more than 300 years ago. The renowned scientist, who discovered gravity and invented calculus, wrote about a second coming of Christ in just over four decades time - marking an end to life as we know it in 2060. Newton wrote this ominous warning on a letter slip in 1704. Born in 1643, Newton was considered an insightful theologian who had a life-long interest in the existence of God and religion. He based a lot of his religious writings on his readings of the Bible and believed in biblical visions of the Apocalypse — especially the Battle of Armageddon. Writing under the alias 'Jehovah Sanctus Unus' predicted the world would "reset" at 2060 at which point the Earth will once again become 'the Kingdom of God', the Daily Mail reports. Newton wrote: "So then the time times & half a time are 42 months or 1260 days or three years & an half, recconing twelve months to a yeare & 30 days to a month as was done in the Calendar of the primitive year. "And the days of short lived Beasts being put for the years of lived kingdoms, the period of 1260 days, if dated from the complete conquest of the three kings A.C. 800, will end A.C. 2060. It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner." In another prediction referencing the date 2060, Newton stated: "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, [and] by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit as often as their predictions fail. Christ comes as a thief in the night, [and] it is not for us to know the times [and] seasons [which] God hath put into his own breast."
Scottish Sun
3 days ago
- Science
- Scottish Sun
‘Death date' of universe revealed as scientists predict when ‘shrinking' will start before ‘Big Crunch' wipes us all out
It's a reverse Big Bang of sorts, which scientists have dubbed the "Big Crunch" GOING, GONE! 'Death date' of universe revealed as scientists predict when 'shrinking' will start before 'Big Crunch' wipes us all out THE universe will start to shrink in just 7billion years, a new study has claimed, upending the prediction that space is ever-expanding. The study, published by physicists from Cornell University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and other institutions, suggests that the universe will reach a peak size. 2 The researchers' theory hinges on dark energy, a mysterious force that makes up about 70 per cent of the known universe Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team After that point, the universe will begin contracting until everything collapses back into a single point. A reverse Big Bang of sorts, 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 33.3billion years. With the universe currently 13.8billion years old, this gives Earth and everything else roughly 20billion years before entering oblivion, according to the study. 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. Mystery Martian hills found on Mars sparking hope 'time capsule' mounds will solve biggest mystery from 4BILLION yrs ago 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 20billion year countdown is hardly a reason to panic. For context, complex life on Earth has existed for only about 600million years - a fraction of time in comparison. 20billion 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.
The Irish Sun
3 days ago
- Science
- The Irish Sun
‘Death date' of universe revealed as scientists predict when ‘shrinking' will start before ‘Big Crunch' wipes us all out
THE universe will start to shrink in just 7billion years, a new study has claimed, upending the prediction that space is ever-expanding. The study, published by physicists from Cornell University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and other institutions, suggests that the universe will reach a peak size. Advertisement 2 The researchers' theory hinges on dark energy, a mysterious force that makes up about 70 per cent of the known universe Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team After that point, the universe will begin contracting until everything collapses back into a single point. A reverse Big Bang of sorts, 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 33.3billion years. With the universe currently 13.8billion years old, this gives Earth and everything else roughly 20billion years before entering oblivion, according to the study. Advertisement READ MORE ON SPACE 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. Advertisement Most read in Science Breaking Exclusive Exclusive 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. Mystery Martian hills found on Mars sparking hope 'time capsule' mounds will solve biggest mystery from 4BILLION yrs ago 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. Advertisement Even if the terrifying outcome is confirmed, a 20billion year countdown is hardly a reason to panic. For context, complex life on Earth has existed for only about 600million years - a fraction of time in comparison. 20billion 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. Advertisement 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. 2 Several major astronomical projects launching in the coming years aim to provide more information on the behaviour of dark energy Credit: Getty
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Will universe end far earlier than expected?
For most of the past generation, astronomy textbooks treated the cosmos as practically immortal. Students learned that after the last red dwarf flickered out, after the final black hole evaporated, darkness would stretch on for a number written with more than a hundred zeros. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now New research led by a group at Radboud University in the Netherlands asks us to erase most of those zeros. Their calculations show that the universe could finish its drawn-out fade after 'only' ten to the power of seventy-eight years. That still dwarfs every human timescale, yet within cosmology it represents a surprisingly quick goodbye. The revision starts with 's famous idea that are not completely black. According to , they emit tiny amounts of energy, lose mass, and eventually disappear. The Dutch team wondered whether any extremely dense, gravitationally bound object might share that fate. They applied the same mathematics to white dwarfs, which are the hot, Earth-sized cores that remain when sun-like stars exhaust their fuel. A white dwarf appears solid and inert, but the new paper argues that quantum fluctuations at its surface allow particles to leak away. Over unimaginableperiodse the entire star would evaporate, just as slowly and inevitably as a lake dries under the desert sun. Once white dwarfs are allowed to vanish, every late-stage forecast of must be compressed. Traditional models pictured those stellar remnants cooling into lightless 'black dwarfs' that wander the void forever. Take them out of the script, and the slowest actors exit much earlier, chopping hundreds of orders of magnitude from the final curtain call. Suddenly, the last sparks of matter are gon, not long after the last black hole, and the universe slides into an empty quantum haze with shocking speed—at least by cosmic accounting. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now While theorists digested that prospect, another group studying the large-scale expansion of space introduced a second, equally dramatic possibility. Data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument hint that dark energy, the mysterious force pushing galaxies apart, may itself be fading. If future surveys confirm the trend, the outward rush could eventually stall, reverse, and race toward a catastrophic 'Big Crunch. ' Such a collapse would end everything far sooner than either the black-hole timetable or the newly shortened evaporation clock. The evidence is still thin, but the mere suggestion stirs debate and underscores how fragile our grandest predictions remain. None of these scenarios changes life on Earth. Our Sun will still swell into a red giant in about five billion years. Long before any deep-time physics matters, continents will shift, oceans will boil, and perhaps our descendants or their machines will have moved elsewhere. Yet cosmologists care deeply because the ultimate fate of the universe tests whether quantum theory and gravity truly mesh. A single adjustment in the equations can shrink eternity, proving that seemingly untouchable numbers are only as sturdy as the assumptions beneath them. So, will the cosmos end in a graceful fade after ten to the seventy-eighth years, or will dark energy flip the sign on gravity and pull everything back in a fiery finale? No one knows yet. What the new work makes clear is that our picture of 'forever' is still a draft, and every fresh observation has the power to shorten or lengthen the longest story ever told.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Say That Something Very Weird Is Going on With the Universe
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Astronomers have made an intriguing discovery that could upend everything we know about the structure of the universe and its expansion. Scientists recently found that dark energy, the mysterious form driving the accelerating expansion of the universe, could be weakening over time. The findings could undermine the existing standard cosmological model of the universe called the lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) model, which takes dark energy, ordinary matter, and cold dark matter — a hypothetical form of dark matter that moves slowly compared to the speed of light — into consideration. The symbol lambda in the model refers to Albert Einstein's cosmological constant, which assumes that the universe is accelerating at a fixed rate. Yet, last year, scientists concluded that dark energy isn't a constant after all, analyzing observations by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in Arizona, as New Scientist reports. They found that the mysterious force could be evolving and weakening over time. In March, scientists released a follow-up, strengthening the unusual findings. "This is exciting – it might actually be putting the standard model of cosmology in danger," Autonomous University of Madrid assistant research professor Yashar Akrami told New Scientist. Instead of making changes to the LCDM itself, Akrami and his colleagues suggested redefining dark energy as a "quintessence field," which has been used to explain observations of an accelerating rate of expansion of the universe. That could allow scientists to harmonize more advanced string theory with the standard cosmological model. "If you prove that quintessence is dark energy, it's very good for [string theorists]," Akrami told New Scientist. "That's why the string theory community is really excited now." An altered take on the quintessence model of dark energy suggests the mysterious force could be interacting with gravity itself. "We've always grown up thinking about the universe as having the gravitational force, and gravity fuels everything," University of Oxford astrophysicist Pedro Ferreira told the publication. "But now there's going to be an additional fifth force, which is due to the dark energy, which also fuels everything." But before we can add this fifth force, we'd have to reconcile the fact that we simply haven't seen any evidence for it, at least not when we're making precise measurements of our neighborhood of the universe. "Physics ends up being even more complicated than we thought it could have been, and that kind of makes you wonder, why do you want to go down that route?" Ferreira added. The researcher believes it's most likely that scientists will debate different models of dark energy and "never resolve it." Yet, there's still a chance researchers could observe gravity being influenced by dark energy in upcoming observations by the European Space Agency's Euclid satellite and DESI. More on dark energy: Scientists Say They've Built a "Black Hole Bomb"
