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Date the world will be destroyed and universe ends calculated by scientists
AOL.com • • science
Key Points:
- Scientists from Cornell University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and other institutions predict the universe will eventually stop expanding and begin contracting, leading to a "Big Crunch" where it collapses back into a single point.
- The Big Crunch is estimated to occur in about 33.3 billion years, giving Earth and other planets roughly 20 billion years before total annihilation.
- The study suggests dark energy, which currently drives cosmic expansion, may not be constant and could weaken, causing the universe to reach a maximum size about 69% larger than today before contracting.
- This theory builds on the idea that the universe's expansion slows progressively until the elastic force of dark energy reverses, snapping the universe back inward.
- Separate predictions indicate that long before the Big Crunch, the sun will burn out and the Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy, making Earth's survival unlikely by the time of the universe's collapse.
