SCIENTISTS have predicted when the Earth will turn into a giant black hole after reviewing new data and simulations.
Physicists say “dark energy” could lead to a “Big Crunch” which causes the eventual collapse of the entire universe as we know it.
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Earth could soon cease to exist after being swallowed up by black holes Credit: AFP
These massive black holes will not only swallow Earth, but everything else in the universe Credit: PA:Press Association
Scientists theorize the universe and Earth could be more than a third of the way to shrinking and collapsing, per a new pre-print paper from the Donostia International Physics Center.
This research estimates that the entire universe will reach its end roughly 33.3billion years after the Big Bang, which happened 13.8billion years ago.
Once it reaches this point, a phenomenon the paper calls the “Big Crunch” will begin and cause the universe’s expansion to reverse.
This reversal will force all of the galaxies, stars, and planets in our universe to begin collapsing in on a single point before being crushed and swallowed by massive black holes.
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“Eventually, it is plausible that the universe ends in giant black holes,” wrote authors Hoang Nhan Luu, Yu-Cheng Qiu, and S.-H. Henry Tye in their paper.
This would occur due to the strength of a force called dark energy that scientists still largely know nothing about.
What they do know is that it’s the force responsible for driving the universe apart, and they thought it was constantly driving universal expansion at a steady rate.
However, new data from a map of 47million galaxies across the universe suggests that dark energy isn’t a universal constant and changes over time.
This means that dark energy could not only stop expanding the universe at some point, but even undo this expansion and effectively rewind the Big Bang.
One this Big Crunch begins, everything in the universe will be pulled toward a single point of matter known as a singularity.
A timeline and map of the universe’s expansion since the Big Bang, which shows how dark energy accelerates expansion at its forefront Credit: NASA
This will “enhance the formation of black holes, in particular the merging of black holes” according to the authors.
“As the universe is collapsing, one can imagine that matters are push together to form a giant black hole, which in turn shields/hides the crunch singularity,” they added.
However, the scientists also clarify that “more and better data are expected in the near future” that will allow the models making these predictions to “be rigorously tested.”
This additional data and testing is expected to more precisely determine the universe’s lifespan as it relates to dark energy and the potential Big Crunch.