The Future of the Universe

The universe: That vast, endless, and possibly infinite space of everything, every science, and every principle we know. And we are nothing but mere particles of it. Anything beyond, and our minds aren’t even capable of comprehending what would even be there. With all these stars, cosmos, galaxies, and much more, what does the universe’s future look like from now on? Will time go on infinitely, or will the idea of time be broken forever?

Let’s take a look at something much simpler: what the Earth will be like in the future.

500 million years later

Within half a billion years from now, this planet will have finished four ice ages. The current Holocene extinction, an ongoing destruction of nature caused by human activity and technology which started from the Holocene epoch, will continue for five million years, with a chance of wiping out all of humanity. A supercontinent like Pangea will form on this planet about 300 million years from now, as tectonic plates begin to shift. Our Earth’s axis will begin to shift up to 90 degrees, changing atmospheric conditions and bringing chaos to life. In one billion years, as the sun becomes brighter, all our oceans will start to evaporate.

As we begin to zoom out even more, our sun’s luminosity will increase within the next 600 million years, causing even more death.

Billions of years later

3.5 billion years later , two galaxies will collide: the Andromeda and the Milky Way. With this, the formation of new stars, black holes, star systems, and planets will occur, forever changing our galaxy.

In about 7.5 billion years, our sun will prepare to die off, transforming into a red giant and absorb Earth completely, but by then, all life will be extinct. After the sun explodes, it marks the end of our entire solar system in just 10 billion years from now.

Trillions of years later

Let’s fast forward one trillion years into the future. One trillion. That has 12 zeroes, so much time that the human mind can’t even comprehend it. This will mark the era of star life fading, with stars exploding everywhere, in every galaxy. In about 100 trillion years, it will be the end of stelliferous life, with only neutron stars, white dwarfs, and black holes remaining.

From this time period onwards, the only thing that remains is proton decay, the disintegration of all matter, and the evaporation of black holes as our universe starts to reach maximum entropy.

There are many possibilities for our universe after this. Recent data hints at the Big Crunch, where all matter, energy, light, and force become compressed into one singularity. Or, the Big Rip occurs, where dark energy defies all principles of the universe and tears it apart.

But of course, ALL of this is but a theory. No one can 100% predict what the reality will be. The real question is, does any of this actually matter? Although humanity itself is unlikely to stand the test of time, knowing what will happen will better help us understand our existence and expand our knowledge of how the universe works, while also helping us to find better ways to protect our Earth and give inspiration and broader perspectives.

Is the universe infinite? Will a new universe be formed? Or will there be something that humans can’t even comprehend?
Only time will tell.