New calculations suggest the universe will decay far faster than expected—shrinking cosmic timelines from unfathomable to merely unimaginable. But don’t worry, we’ve still got 10⁷⁸ years to go.
Key Points at a Glance
- Radboud University team recalculates universe’s end via Hawking-like radiation
- White dwarfs may evaporate in “only” 1078 years, not 101100
- Neutron stars and black holes decay at the same rate—1067 years
- Even humans and the Moon will eventually vanish via Hawking-like radiation
- Study bridges quantum physics, relativity, and mathematics with a playful tone
The end of everything just got a little closer—cosmically speaking. In a delightful and dead-serious twist on cosmic destiny, a team of scientists from Radboud University in the Netherlands has discovered that the universe will decay far faster than previously believed. Their findings compress the predicted heat death of the cosmos from a mind-bending 10^1100 years to a more modest 10^78.
Though 10^78 years still stretches well beyond human comprehension, this recalculation represents a seismic shift in our understanding of cosmic longevity. It also reveals fascinating new behavior in how celestial bodies—from black holes to neutron stars to white dwarfs—gradually disappear into the quantum haze of Hawking-like radiation.
The trio behind this study—black hole specialist Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak, and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom—are no strangers to ambitious thought experiments. Building on a 2023 paper in which they expanded the concept of Hawking radiation to include not just black holes but any object with mass and gravity, they’ve now tackled the inevitable question: how long does it take everything to dissolve into nothing?
Their answer is rooted in a bold reinterpretation of Hawking radiation, the phenomenon proposed by Stephen Hawking in 1975. According to Hawking, black holes can emit particles due to quantum fluctuations near their event horizons. Over trillions of years, this leakage causes black holes to lose mass and eventually evaporate. The Radboud team took that principle and asked—what if this applies to everything?
Their results are as poetic as they are perplexing. White dwarfs, those dense remnants of sun-like stars, were previously thought to be the most enduring cosmic objects, surviving 10^1100 years. But Falcke and colleagues now show they might vanish after just 10^78 years. Neutron stars and stellar black holes? A tidy 10^67 years each.
That parity surprised the researchers. One would assume black holes, with their formidable gravity, would evaporate faster. But the twist is in the detail: “Black holes have no surface,” Wondrak explains, “so they reabsorb part of their own radiation, slowing the process.”
Even more whimsically, the team extended their calculations to less epic subjects: a human being and the Moon. The result? Both would evaporate in roughly 10^90 years—far longer than the stars, but still finite on the universal timeline. Of course, as the authors cheekily point out, other forces are likely to destroy us long before that clock runs out.
While the tone of the paper includes a wink to readers, the science is sound and serves a deeper purpose: by probing the outermost boundaries of physics—where general relativity, quantum theory, and pure mathematics collide—the researchers hope to chip away at the still-enigmatic nature of Hawking radiation.
As van Suijlekom explains, these interdisciplinary questions aren’t just cosmic trivia. They may be our best chance at finally unifying physics’ most incompatible theories. “By asking these kinds of questions and looking at extreme cases,” he says, “we want to better understand the theory, and perhaps one day, unravel the mystery of Hawking radiation.”
And so, while our own end may come much sooner (and with less poetry), the universe is slowly, inexorably winding down—not in a dramatic explosion, but in a long quantum sigh. And thanks to the Radboud team, we now know that sigh is a little shorter than we imagined.
Source: Radboud University Nijmegen
