Surprising theory from scientists: The universe will start to shrink

For generations, humanity has gazed up at the stars and wondered about the ultimate fate of the universe: Will it sprawl out into a cold void forever, or will a more dramatic end await?

A new study by physicists at Cornell University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and several other institutions provides a surprisingly clear answer to this question.

Using data from various astronomical observations, such as the Dark Energy Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, scientists have suggested that our universe will end in a “Big Crunch” when it is about 33.3 billion years old. The universe is only 13.8 billion years old.

IT STARTS AFTER 7 BILLION YEARS

This prediction challenges the long-held assumption that the universe will expand forever. According to the new model, the universe will continue to expand for about 7 billion years, and once it reaches its maximum expansion, it will gradually start to contract, eventually causing everything to collapse into a single point.

The key to this scenario is understanding the mysterious “dark energy” that makes up about 70 percent of the universe and is driving the expansion. It was long assumed that dark energy behaved like a fixed cosmological constant, pushing space with a constant pressure forever. But recent observations suggest that dark energy may actually be dynamic.

LIKE A GIANT RUBBER BAND

The researchers propose a model in which the axion, an ultralight particle, and a negative cosmological constant play a role. It can be likened to a giant rubber band: At first, the rubber band stretches as the universe expands, but at some point the elastic force becomes more dominant than the expansion and starts pulling everything back.

According to the new model, the universe will expand at a slowing rate until it reaches a size 69 percent larger than today. After about 7 billion years, the expansion will stop and gradually give way to contraction. In the final stage, cosmological forces will rapidly gather all matter into a single point, causing the "Big Crunch."

The researchers also emphasize that this prediction contains serious uncertainties. The negative cosmological constant is still a completely speculative concept and the model has a high margin of error due to limited observational data. Alternative possibilities, such as the eternal inflation scenario, are still on the table.

Another exciting aspect of this research is that this prediction could be tested in the near future. Large astronomical projects that will be launched in the coming years could confirm, develop or completely refute this scenario by measuring the behavior of dark energy much more precisely.

Of course, even if it were confirmed, a 20 billion-year countdown does not mean a crisis for humanity. For comparison, complex life on Earth has only existed for about 600 million years. In 20 billion years, the Sun will die, our galaxy will collide with Andromeda, and only then will cosmic collapse begin.

Still, the work is a remarkable step forward for science in that it offers a concrete and testable prediction about the ultimate fate of the universe. For the first time in human history, scientists have established a timeline for the end of everything that exists, making the end of the universe itself testable rather than a scenario.