2020 with all the disasters and catastrophes happening so far, might look like the end
of the universe already.
But believe me when I tell you that the end is still very VERY far away, and you won’t
even be around to witness it, so set back and relax while we talk to you about a new
prediction of how everything will eventually end!
You may have heard the common theory of the end of the universe that theorise how only
black holes and dead stars will be floating around space after every other planetary body
has ceased to exist!
Which is a theory commonly known as “heat death.”
But just last week, physicists from “Illinois State University” in the United States led
by assistant professor “Matt Caplan” published a report discussing their new study accepted
for publication by the “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” which
suggested a new plausible prediction to the end of the universe.
In the new study, professor “Caplan” and his team say that a future type of star known
as black dwarfs will be the last kind of bodies in the universe and will eventually explode
in a supernova declaring the end of the universe in spectacular explosions.
Before you think this is just another boring theory, let me grab your attention real quick
and tell you that black dwarfs were never supposed to have the energy to go supernova
in the first place!
That’s what makes this new prediction so important and breathtaking!
So, what the hell happened and how will black dwarfs get the energy in the future to explode?
To answer that, we first have to know what a black dwarf is.
To put it simply, a black dwarf is the final stage of many stages in the life cycle of
relatively small stars.
Small or medium stars having a mass that is less than 10 times the mass of the Sun live
their lives and eventually run out of the energy that’s fueling nuclear fusion which
keeps the stars alive.
And because the mass of small and medium stars and their gravity are not enough to go supernova,
they turn into what are called “white dwarfs.”
White dwarfs are stars full of light weight material like nitrogen and oxygen and carbon,
that’s because the stars are not very massive to produce heavier elements like iron therefore,
we don’t see them explode.
Another reason why white dwarfs don’t go supernova, is because they are under equilibrium
by 2 forces; the force of gravity pushing the star inward, and the force of electron
degeneracy pressure pushing the star outward.
And thus, white dwarfs stay in this state for trillions of years until they run out
of energy to support themselves and eventually turn into cold black dwarfs.
Professor “Caplan” further explains the life cycle of a white dwarf saying:
"As white dwarfs cool down over the next few trillion years, they'll grow dimmer, eventually
freeze solid, and become 'black dwarf' stars that no longer shine."
Objects that don’t shine in the universe may ring a bell!
Remember black holes?
Of course you do!
But you shouldn’t mistake them for black dwarfs!
Because black holes are the last stage of the life cycle of much much bigger and massive
stars that range from 3 to billion times the mass of the Sun.
Additionally, black holes exist in the universe now and we have evidence of their existence
unlike black dwarfs, and scientists have even captured a picture of a black hole a couple
of years ago.
Black dwarfs on the other hand, are objects that will exist far away in the future after
hundreds of trillions of years, and because they will no longer shine in the distant future,
it may be believed that nuclear fusion -which eventually triggers supernovae- will not take
place!
But professor “Caplan” predicted in his new work that nuclear fusion can indeed still
happen even long after white dwarfs lose their shine and turn into black dwarfs!!
Naming his prediction "black dwarf supernova", professor “Caplan” says that nuclear fusion
will occur through what is known as “Quantum tunneling” which takes a very very long
time.
Quantum tunneling is not a new concept, it’s actually quite old and established in the
field of quantum mechanics and it explains lots of phenomena we see in subatomic physics
even though physicists don’t exactly understand how quantum tunneling happens or why.
Quantum tunneling describes a physical process happening on the quantum subatomic level in
which particles act as waves which enables them to cross high energy barriers they would
otherwise not be able to cross.
Quantum tunneling is also the foundational operational concept used in lots of electronics
chips and equipment like the “Scanning tunneling microscopes” used to image atoms and the
tunneling diode used to regulate the direction of the electrical current.
This process of Quantum tunneling will eventually produce heavier elements inside black dwarfs
like silicon and nickel that will fuse together and produce iron.
Nuclear fusion in stars always ends at iron, no matter how hot or energetic a star is,
and a black dwarf will not be any different.
When black dwarfs will not be able to fuse iron into higher elements, this will lead
the force of gravity that pushes the star inward to win against the force of “electron
degeneracy pressure” that pushes the star outward, which in turn will drive the whole
of the black dwarf to go supernova.
The new study didn’t only mention how the black dwarfs will explode, but it also mentioned
the calculation of how long ahead in the future these events will take place, and the answer
will SHOCK you!
It was estimated that after 10 to the power of 11000 years in future, the first massive
enough black dwarf will explode!
This is so many years that scientists don’t even have a name for them!
Black dwarfs will continue on exploding until the last one of them that’s going supernova
in 10 to the power of 32000 years in the future.
I would advise you not to try to wrap your head around these numbers because imagining
them is too hard you might just end up losing your mind!
This kind of timescale is one that is unimaginably far in the future when all the black holes
are gone due to Hawking radiation and leftover extraterrestrial bodies in space stretch out
far from each other to enormous distances (due to dark energy) which light itself will
not be able to travel.
In fact, the new study calculated that by the time black dwarfs would explode, the universe
would have expand by a factor of Euler's number “e” -that equals to 2.71- to the power
of 10 to the power of 1100 (e10^1100) !!!
Expressing these overwhelming events and numbers is professor “Caplan” in the Illinois
state university report saying:
“This is the biggest number I’m ever going to have to seriously work with in my career,”
He continues on saying,
"It's hard to imagine anything coming after that, black dwarf supernova might be the last
interesting thing to happen in the universe.
They may be the last supernova ever."
The new work also predicted that not all black dwarfs will end up going supernova, this lucky
outcome will only befall the ones with the largest masses which range between 1.2 to
1.4 times the mass of the Sun, followed by the less massive black dwarfs.
Stars with these masses account for about 1 percent of the number of stars alive today
in the universe, or at least, what we know of.
That makes around a billion trillion stars awaiting slow death after a much slower nuclear
fusion long after they turn into a black dwarf!
So what about the less massive black dwarfs?
What’s going to happen to them then?
Do they suffer the same fate, or is there a different surprise awaiting us?
Because mass and gravity are very important in the process of nuclear fusion, less massive
black dwarfs will remain black dwarfs floating around in space as the lone survivors in an
empty cold universe, just like professor “Caplan” expressed "It will be a bit of a sad, lonely,
cold place."
They will not explode nor turn into anything else!
The next step for professor “Caplan” and his team to work on is to come up with a simulation
program that can effectively simulate their new study.
Simulating helps physicists draw comparisons and similarities or even differences between
their predictions and the simulations.
Studying the end of the universe is not an odd field of study for astrophysicists, in
fact, many other theories of how the universe is going to end float around the internet
all the time, some of them are legitimate, and some of them are not.
That’s why it’s important to note that all these theories are just theoretical and
that professor “Caplan” himself is a theoretical physicist, his calculations and predictions
make sense on paper, but there is no way to experimentally test them.
Especially when other science exists that may contradict this theory.
For example, in the science magazine website, author “Adam Mann” expressed that if the
theory of “proton decay” is correct, it would completely break the work of “black
dwarfs supernova.”
The reason behind that is that black dwarfs would cease to exist due to proton decay long
before they get the chance to build iron using quantum tunneling and explode!
Other ideas dismantling Caplan’s theory is the “big crunch” which is a hypothesis
saying that just like the universe began with expansion from the big bang, it will eventually
end the way it started; with collapsing in on itself before black dwarfs get to explode
or even form!
And just like “Gregory Laughlin”, an astrophysicist at Yale University, said in response to the
new study:
“Our view of the extremely distant future is a reflection of our current understanding,
and that view will change from one year to the next.”
Which means that we have to be careful not to be hung up on mere theoretical theories
that have yet to grow and be proven correct, especially when they deal with concepts trillions
of years in the future.
So no matter how much we theorise and suggest about the end of the universe and how it’s
gonna go by, it will still remain a very big mystery to us humans whose lives are nothing
in comparison with the incredible age of the universe.