End Of The Universe May Be Much Closer Than You Think

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Two physicists have proposed a new theory that claims that the destruction of the universe it much closer than anyone expected. Thankfully though,

it is still over 10 billion years away, meaning that none of us will have to suffer through it.

According to a recent paper written byNemanja Kaloper of the University of California Davis and Antonio Padilla of theUniversity of Nottingham, the increasing amount of dark energy, such as dark matter, in the universe suggests that the universe will stop expanding and start collapsing in on itself much sooner than expected. They state that after months of calculations, they’ve determined that this cosmic apocalypse will occur in about 10 billion years, though research into this figure is obviously ongoing.

While the average person won’t care that everything is going to end 10 billion years after they are dead, this is alarming news for scientists. The previous widely-held theory about the nature of the universe was that it was expanding at an incredible rate and that its ultimate collapse and end wouldn’t occur for several trillion years at least.

This means that years’ worth of research into the nature of the universe based on the assumption that its end was much farther away is likely unreliable. Tests will have to be redone, as the physics community is now back at square one in what we know about the size and expansion of the cosmos.

But scientists aren’t panicking too hard. The news that the universe is ending hundreds of billions of years early means that explanations into the nature and speed of why the universe is expanding, and how it will eventually collapse, are also much closer. Likewise, answers into the existence of dark matter, one of science’s great mysteries, are also much closer.

New research has made some startling discoveries and put an expiration date on the universe. But no one is panicking. It’s billions of years away, meaning that none of us will be alive to see it and that discoveries about the fabric of the universe itself are much closer than anticipated.