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Imagine a future where Earth becomes unshackled from the Sun’s gravitational pull and flies off into the void.
And around three months later, it is violently torn apart in the space of a few minutes, leaving a cloud of atoms which then disintegrate in a tiny fraction of a second.
That’s the fate that some phyisicists believe could befall our planet – along with all other celestial bodies in the universe at roughly the same time.
It’s known as the ‘Big Rip’ theory of the end of the universe.
It used to be a fringe theory, but has gained some currency as a means to explain the strange behaviour of dark energy, which was discovered in the late 90s.
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Dark energy is widely accepted as the explanation for evidence from telescopes that the universe is expanding faster and faster – rather than slowing down.
Until recently, the vast majority of cosmologists agreed the universe will keep on expanding in this way forever.
Eventually, stars would run out of fuel and galaxies would fall dark and frozen.
But surprising results from an Arizona telescope instrument in March has sparked a major shake-up.
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (Desi) delivered data suggesting the universe’s acceleration has gone up and down since the start of the universe.
If it turns out to have increased overall, there must be an additional mysterious force – which has been coined ‘phantom dark energy’ – which could one day gain enough pace to cause a ‘Big Rip’.
Last month, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) published research from a South Korean team indicating that this acceleration has in fact slowed down overall.
If it were to continue weakening, it could suggest that dark energy will one day become so weak that it no longer exceeds the force of gravity.
The galaxies would then began to pull back together into a ‘Big Crunch’ in which stars would collide into each other and the leftover debris would collapse in on itself.
Prof Young Wook Lee, who led the Korean team, told the BBC: ‘The fate of the Universe will change. If dark energy is not constant and it’s getting weakened, this will change the whole paradigm of modern cosmology.
‘Which outcome wins, depends on the true nature of dark energy, for which we still do not know the answer.’
Whether the Big Rip or Big Crunch wins out ‘depends on the true nature of dark energy, for which we still do not know the answer’, he added.
While the study has been peer-reviewed and published in a respected journal, its conclusions have not yet widely caught on.
This is partly because some experts think they were drawn too hastily.
But it’s mostly because more independent research confirming the results is needed in order for it to be accepted.
But Prof Young added: ‘The statistical significance is roughly one-in-a-trillion chance of being a fluke.
‘So, I strongly feel that already our research is very, very significant.’
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