The end of the universe will occur long before the previous estimated, according to a new study of scientists from the University of Radboud in the Netherlands, published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
The team estimates that this event will happen in about 10 elevated to 78 years, a figure that, although still immensely distant, represents a significant correction against the previous estimate of 10 elevated to 1,100 years.
“The end of the universe will happen long before planned, but fortunately there is still a long time,” said Heino Falcke, lead author of the study.
The investigation focused on calculating the moment on which the most durable celestial bodies will be extinguished: white dwarfs. For this, scientists applied the principle of Hawking radiation – proposed in the 70s by physicist Stephen Hawking – that suggests that black holes lose mass and eventually evaporate.
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Life on the planet will end before the universe
The authors expanded that principle to other objects of the universe, considering that evaporation speed is related to the density of the celestial body.
Thus, they managed to calculate the “evaporation time” of the white dwarfs, considered the most stable structures of the cosmos.
However, researchers clarify that this phenomenon is so far in time that it does not represent a risk for humanity.
However, life on Earth will end much earlier: within a thousand million years, the increase in solar brightness could evaporate the oceans, and in about 8 billion years, the expansion of the sun will probably engulf the planet, already without conditions for life.
With agency information
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