Last month, SFT reported that the Microwave Anisotropy Probe has revealed that 73% of the Universe is made of dark energy–a mysterious force that accelerates the Universe’s expansion–making it most likely that the Universe will not end in a Big Crunch, but will instead continue to expand, ever more rapidly, until all that remains is a cold, diffuse gas. As if that weren’t depressing enough, now a third possibility has emerged, in which the universe ends with a runaway expansion so violent that galaxies, planets and even atomic nuclei are literally ripped apart. Thankfully, not for another 22 billion years.
As New Scientist reports, the disturbing new theory comes from Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. “Until now we thought the Universe would either re-collapse to a big crunch or expand forever to a state of infinite dilution. Now we’ve come up with a third possibility – the ‘big rip’.” Most physicists assume that the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion is likely to stay constant or get weaker over time. But Caldwell thinks the dark energy causing the expansion may be instead getting stronger. Under the influence of this “phantom energy”, as he calls it, the runaway expansion of the Universe would become increasingly violent, stretching the Universe light from the stars cannot reach us.
Then, as Caldwell told SPACE.com, “The expansion becomes so fast that it literally rips apart all bound objects. It rips apart clusters of galaxies. It rips apart stars. It rips apart planets and solar systems. And it eventually rips apart all matter.”