It’s the end of the world as we know it — a lot sooner than we think.
A team of researchers have drastically scaled back the going estimate of how long it will be until the universe ceases to exist.
Previously, scientists believed it would be 10¹¹⁰⁰ years until the very last objects in the cosmos would disappear forever — that’s a 1 followed by 1,100 zeroes, in layman’s terms.
But a new study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics by a trio of researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands posits the real figure as closer to 10⁷⁸ years, or a 1 followed by just 78 zeroes, Science Aim writes.
Make no mistake, 10⁷⁸ years is a long, long, long time. But the difference between 10⁷⁸ years and 10¹¹⁰⁰ years is so enormous that it’s unfathomable to the human mind.
At the heart of the researchers’ dramatic revision is Hawking radiation, a theory proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking in 1975 that black holes aren’t completely black but rather very slowly leaking particles.
Hawking explained the process in numerous books and talks over the years, wherein a pair of temporary particles form at the edge of black holes and rather than merging, one escapes while the other is sucked into the cosmic abyss.
The surviving particle is then imbued with energy from the black hole itself.
Hawking theorized that over “extraordinarily long timescales,” black holes lose mass and eventually evaporate entirely, contradicting Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which states that black holes can only grow larger.
The same researchers behind the new study — black-hole expert Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom — claimed in a 2023 paper that Hawking radiation doesn’t only affect black holes but can have the same impact on any object in space with a gravitational field.
The new study builds upon the scientists’ previous research, looking at 10 types of celestial objects to determine how long it would take for each of them to completely evaporate with Hawking-like radiation, based on their density.
The most striking finding concerns white dwarf stars — the super-dense, cooling remnants of stars such as our sun that have burned through their fuel supply.
According to the outlet, about 97% of stars in the Milky Way galaxy will one day become white dwarfs, which the new research states will vanish after a period of approximately 10⁷⁸ years.
The universe is believed to be about 13.8 billion years old, or 10¹⁰ years, meaning the revised estimate of how long the universe will last surpasses its current age by a factor of 10⁶⁸, or a 1 followed by 68 zeroes, the outlet said.
“So the ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately, it still takes a very long time,” said lead author Heino Falcke.