Scientists reveal the exact date the universe will end and it’s ‘sooner than expected’
Scientists from Radboud University in the Netherlands believe they’ve figured out when the universe will finally come to an end, and it might be much sooner than earlier scientists thought though it’s still such a long time from now that no humans will be around to see it.
The researchers used an idea from the famous scientist Stephen Hawking. Hawking once said that black holes, which are super dense and powerful objects in space, slowly lose tiny amounts of energy over time. This process is known as Hawking radiation. Eventually, black holes would shrink and completely disappear because of this slow leaking of energy.
The team in the Netherlands wondered if other objects in space might also slowly vanish in the same way. So, they started looking at neutron stars and white dwarfs. These are very old stars that have reached the last stage of their life. They don’t shine brightly anymore and are basically the leftover remains of what used to be normal stars like our sun. Scientists used to think that neutron stars and white dwarfs would last forever, but now, these Dutch scientists believe that they too will eventually disappear, just like black holes.
After doing lots of calculations using Hawking’s idea, the team estimated that everything in the universe every star, planet, and piece of matter will be completely gone in about 10⁷⁸ years. That number is so huge it’s almost impossible to picture. It’s a one followed by 78 zeros. Even though this is still an unimaginably long time from now, it’s a big change from what other scientists used to think. Older estimates said the universe might last until 10¹¹⁰⁰ years — a number even bigger.
The lead researcher, Heino Falcke, said this new prediction means the universe will end much earlier than we thought before, but it’s still far, far into the future. So, there’s nothing for people today to worry about. One of his colleagues, Walter van Suijlekom, said they are studying extreme questions like this to help us understand how the universe works and maybe even get closer to solving the mysteries behind things like Hawking radiation.
Even though this might sound a bit scary, it’s important to know that this will happen way beyond the time humans will exist. In fact, Stephen Hawking once warned that the Earth could stop being livable by the year 2600 — not because of space stuff, but because of problems we’re creating ourselves, like nuclear war, pollution, and dangerous technology. NASA has also said that human-caused global warming is already damaging our planet and that the effects will only get worse if we don’t change how we live.
This new study shows how powerful it can be when scientists from different areas — like space science, physics, and math — work together. By combining their knowledge, they’ve come up with a new way of thinking about the future of everything in the universe. It reminds us how much we still have to learn and how even the biggest mysteries, like the end of the universe, are slowly being uncovered.
