A new study shakes up the usual scenarios at the end of the cosmos.
As we know: the universe is not eternal. But when exactly everything will everything go? The work of three Dutch researchers, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, come to shake up the usual scenarios at the end of the cosmos and question our understanding of what is called “the end of the universe”.
These scientists, specialized in black holes, quantum physics and mathematics, wanted to know how long the most resistant objects in the universe could still hold: white dwarf stars. Until now, we thought they would last almost forever. However, according to this new study, even they could end up “evaporating” and disappear because of a phenomenon called “radiation of hawking”, an extremely slow process.
We prefer to prevent: the new date recalculated by the researchers is in very, very, very long: 1067 years. Ie a billion billion billion times the current age of the universe. A figure so huge that it exceeds understanding. However, it remains significantly lower than previous estimates which evaluated the end of the universe at 101100 years. Knowing that the universe has “only” 13.8 billion years, it is as if we had just turned on the first candle on a cake planned for a thousand billion years of birthdays. After that, there will be no more light, no more stars, no more visible material. Then, slowly, the last residues of matter will in turn stretch.
What is fascinating is that this study suggests that the universe would not end just with a cold and silent expansion, as we thought. It could literally dissolve, object by object, atom by atom, until there is nothing left. Not an wandering atom, not a spark. Nothing. That said, do not panic, the authors themselves warn: by then, other events will probably have ended our universe, long before the slightest dust begins to evaporate.
