A study confirms that the universe will begin shrinking very soon – Teach me about science

The universe wasn't always the same size all the time. 13.8 billion years ago, when the universe was just a dense, hot point, it was smaller than a subatomic particle, but thanks to the repulsive energy field, this point began to expand, to the point that this point began to expand.

We know this event as the Big Bang, and currently it has not stopped, and is even faster than before. However, recently Stady It shows that the universe, despite its accelerating expansion, can enter into a phase of contraction. All of this raises questions like: When might this shift happen? At what point will it be discovered? The conclusions suggest that this may happen very soon.

What keeps objects close is gravity, and when they separate, it is identified as a type of antigravity that is now known as “dark energy.” This could not be seen or detected directly, although it can be measured by its effect on ordinary matter, so in this case it is related to the expansion of the universe. Although the surprising fact is that more than 95% of the energy density of the universe exists in an undetected form, and dark energy constitutes 70% of it.

This same study explains dark energy as a kind of essence, which could come to an end. “This paper presents a simple mechanism by which a dynamic form of dark energy (known as the core) can halt acceleration and smoothly transition from the expansion phase to the slow contraction phase.” Author's comment Stady.

Given this approach, if dark energy is as shown in this study, conclusions about the contraction of the universe place a “near” date, perhaps a little less than 100 million years from now.

It may seem that time is excessive, but the minimum time periods before the end of acceleration and the end of expansion are surprisingly short, from a cosmological point of view, because compared to geological time scales, the minimum time that remains before the end of expansion approximates the period during which life exists on Earth, and the interval The time remaining until the end of the acceleration is less than the time that has passed since the Chicxulub asteroid caused the dinosaurs to disappear.

Given this, another doubt arises: what will happen when the universe shrinks? The two expected scenarios are: that the universe shrinks to a point so dense that it can recreate the Big Bang, and the other is that the universe can be reborn.

Like any approach, it needs to be verified, and if it turns out to be correct, it would mean a real revolution in cosmology, so we will have to wait for the announcement of some discoveries on this topic.