After nearly 13.8 billion years of continuous expansion, will the universe shrink?

Simulate the expanding universe

After nearly 13.8 billion years of continuous expansion, the universe may soon shrink in the near future.

This new study by a group of scientists from Princeton University and New York University (USA) has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the authors, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that occupies most of the universe and tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe.

The team modeled dark energy in a cosmological model, showing that this is not a constant force, but can decay over time.

The forces that make up dark energy also show signs of weakening. According to the analysis, the accelerating factors for the expansion of the universe will probably stop within the next 65 million years.

At the same time, in 100 years, the universe will probably stop expanding completely. Next, the universe will enter a period of contraction, which can last for billions of years.

After shrinking all the way, many theories believe that the universe will “die”, while others believe that there will be a new regenerative force for the universe.

Professor Paul Steinhardt – director of the Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University (USA), lead author of the study – said that all of the above process is happening very quickly. That means the universe could enter a shrinking phase much earlier than expected.

Dark energy is still being studied by scientists – Photo: TECH EXPLORIST

Before that, since the 1990s, scientists have also thought that the expansion of the universe is constantly accelerating, interstellar space is expanding faster than billions of years ago.

Scientists have named the mysterious factor driving this process dark energy, which has the ability to pull massive objects in the universe away from each other instead of closer together like gravity.

In their study, Professor Steinhardt and colleagues predicted how the properties of dark energy might change over the next few billion years.

The team created a model of the interaction between dark energy and gravitational energy according to current parameters, from which to visualize the changes of the universe in the future.

According to this model, dark energy shows signs of serious decline. Professor Steinhardt said this reduction is difficult to feel, but in a few billion years, the universe could shrink to only half the size it is today.

In contrast, professor of physics and astronomy Gary Hinshaw at the University of British Columbia (Canada) – who was not involved in the study – thinks that the current key lies in the dark energy of the universe.

Currently, the scientific world is still unable to agree and fully understand dark energy and its effects on the movement of the universe.

Therefore, according to Professor Gary Hinshaw, the research on the expansion – contraction of the universe currently only stops at theoretical models and is more of a reference than a warning.