Scientists calculate when the universe will end — it's sooner than expected
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As the story of our cosmos moves forward, stars will slowly burn out, planets will freeze over, and black holes will devour light itself. Eventually, on timescales so long humanity will never witness them, the universe will fade into darkness.
But if you've ever wondered exactly when it all might end, you may find it oddly comforting, or perhaps a bit unsettling, to know that someone has actually done the math. As it turns out, this cosmic finale might arrive sooner than scientists previously thought.
Don't worry, though — "sooner" still means a mind-bending 10 to the power of 78 years from now. That is a 1 followed by 78 zeros, which is unimaginably far into the future. However, in cosmic terms, this estimate is a dramatic advancement from the previous prediction of 10 to the power of 1,100 years, made by Falcke and his team in 2023.
"The ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time," Heino Falcke, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Radboud University in the Netherlands, who led the new study, said in a statement.
The team's new calculations focus on predicting when the universe's most enduring celestial objects — the glowing remnants of dead stars such as white dwarfs and neutron stars — will ultimately fade away.
This gradual decay is driven by Hawking radiation, a concept proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking in the 1970s. The theory suggests a peculiar process occurs near the event horizon — the point of no return — around black holes. Normally, virtual pairs of particles are constantly created by what are known as quantum fluctuations. These particle pairs pop in and out of existence, rapidly annihilating each other. Near a black hole's event horizon, however, the intense gravitational field prevents such annihilation. Instead, the pair is separated: one particle, one carrying negative energy, falls into the black hole, reducing its mass, while the other escapes into space.
Over incredibly long timescales, Hawking's theory suggests this process causes the black hole to slowly evaporate, eventually vanishing.
Falcke and his team extended this idea beyond black holes to other compact objects with strong gravitational fields. They found that the "evaporation time" of other objects emitting Hawking radiation depends solely on their densities. This is because unlike black hole evaporation, which is driven by the presence of an event horizon, this more general form of decay is driven by the curvature of spacetime itself.
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The team's new findings, described in a paper published Monday (May 12) in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics on Monday (May 12), offer a new estimate for how long it takes white dwarf stars to dissolve into nothingness. Surprisingly, the team found that neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes decay over the same timescale: about 10 to the power of 67 years. This was unexpected, as black holes have stronger gravitational fields and were thought to evaporate faster.
"But black holes have no surface," Michael Wondrak, a postdoctoral researcher of astrophysics at Radboud University and a co-author of the study, said in the statement. "They reabsorb some of their own radiation, which inhibits the process."
If even white dwarf stars and black holes eventually dissolve into nothing, what does that say about us? Perhaps it suggests meaning isn't found in permanence, but in the fleeting brilliance of asking questions like these — while the stars are still shining.
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5 hours ago
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Private Japanese spacecraft crashes into moon in 'hard landing,' ispace says
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A spacecraft from Japan attempting to make the country's first private moon landing on Thursday instead crashed into the lunar surface in a disappointing second failure for its ispace builders. The Japanese company's Resilience spacecraft aimed to make a soft touchdown in the Mare Frigoris ("Sea of Cold") region of the moon's near side today (June 5) at 3:17 p.m. EDT (1917 GMT; 4:17 a.m. on June 6 Japan Standard Time). But telemetry from the lander stopped one minute and 45 seconds before the scheduled touchdown, apparently due to an equipment malfunction. It was reminiscent of ispace's first lunar landing attempt, in April 2023. The spacecraft also went dark during that try, which was eventually declared a failure. "We wanted to make Mission 2 a success but unfortunately we were able to land," ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters in a press conference a few hours after the landing try. Preliminary data based on telemetry from Resilience's final moments suggest that the lander's laser rangefinder experienced some sort of delays while measuring the probe's distance to the lunar surface. "As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing," ispace officials wrote in an update. "Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface." A hard landing means Resilience hit the moon's surface faster than planned. It's unlikely it survived in any condition to proceed with its two-week mission, or deploy the small Tenacious rover built by the European Space Agency. "For those who have supported us, we'd really like to apologize," Hakamada said, adding that ispace is committed to learning from its failures for future flights. "We have to continue on our mission to have moon exploration by [the] Japanese." Resilience stood 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) tall and weighs about 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) when fully fueled. It's the second of ispace's Hakuto-R lunar landers, which explains the name of its current flight: Hakuto-R Mission 2. Hakuto is a white rabbit in Japanese mythology. The ispace folks first used the name for their entry in the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered $20 million to the first private team to soft-land a probe on the moon and have it accomplish some basic exploration tasks. The Prize ended in 2018 without a winner, but ispace carried on with its lunar hardware and ambitions. (The "R" in Hakuto-R stands for "reboot.") The company made big strides on Hakuto-R Mission 1, which successfully reached lunar orbit in March 2023. But that spacecraft couldn't stick the landing; it crashed after its altitude sensor got confused by the rim of a lunar crater, which it mistook for the surrounding lunar surface. ispace folded the lessons learned into Hakuto-R Mission 2, which launched on Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Space Coast. That was a moon-mission twofer for SpaceX: Resilience shared the rocket with Blue Ghost, a robotic lander built and operated by the Texas company Firefly Aerospace that carried 10 scientific instruments for NASA via the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Blue Ghost arrived in orbit around the moon on Feb. 13 and landed successfully on March 2, pulling off the second-ever soft lunar touchdown by a private spacecraft. That mission went well from start to finish; the solar-powered Blue Ghost operated on the moon for two weeks as planned, finally going dark on March 16 after the sun set over its landing site. Resilience took a longer, more energy-efficient path to the moon, which featured a close flyby of Earth's nearest neighbor on Feb. 14. The lander arrived in lunar orbit as planned on May 6, then performed a series of maneuvers to shift into a circular path just 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface. That set the stage for Thursday's action. Resilience used a series of thruster burns to descend, decelerate and steer its way toward a landing in Mare Frigoris, a vast basaltic plain that lies about 56 degrees north of the lunar equator. But something went wrong when Resilience was just 192 meters above the lunar surface. It's not clear if Resilience was moving faster than expected because of the laser rangefinder data lag, or if that data lag was caused by the probe moving faster than planned, ispace said. "First, we have to figure out the root cause for the phenomenon we observed, and then we have to utilize them into Mission 3 and Mission 4," Hakamada said. If Resilience had succeeded today, it would be just the second soft lunar touchdown for Japan; its national space agency, JAXA, put the SLIM ("Smart Lander for Investigating Moon') spacecraft down safely in January 2024. Today's landing attempt was part of a wave of private lunar exploration, which kicked off with Israel's Beresheet lander mission in 2019. Beresheet failed during its touchdown try, just as ispace's first mission did two years ago. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic had an abortive go in January 2024 with its Peregrine lunar lander, which suffered a crippling fuel leak shortly after launch and ended up crashing back to Earth. A month later, Houston company Intuitive Machines made history with its Odysseus craft, which touched down near the lunar south pole. Odysseus tipped over shortly after touchdown but continued operating for about a week. Its successor, named Athena, also toppled during its lunar touchdown on March 6 — just four days after Blue Ghost hit the gray dirt — with more serious consequences: The probe went dark within a few short hours. Peregrine, Blue Ghost, Odysseus and Athena all carried NASA science payloads. They were supported by the agency's CLPS program, which aims to gather cost-efficient science data ahead of crewed Artemis moon landings, the first of which is slated for 2027. Resilience carried five payloads, but they don't belong to NASA; Hakuto-R Mission 2 is not a CLPS effort. Three of these five are pieces of science gear that aim to help human exploration of the moon: a deep-space radiation probe developed by National Central University in Taiwan; a technology demonstration from the Japanese company Takasago Thermal Engineering Co. designed to produce hydrogen and oxygen from moon water; and an algae-growing experiment provided by Malaysia-based Euglena Co. (Algae could be an efficient food source for lunar settlers someday.) The other two payloads are a commemorative plate based on the "Charter of the Universal Century" from the Japanese sci-fi franchise Gundam and a tiny rover named Tenacious, which was built by ispace's Luxembourg-based subsidiary. Tenacious was designed to roll down onto the surface and collect a small amount of moon dirt, under a contract that ispace signed with NASA back in 2020. The rover carried a payload of its own — "Moonhouse," a tiny replica of a red-and-white Swedish house designed by artist Mikael Gensberg. The rover was supposed to lower the Moonhouse off its front bumper onto the lunar dirt, establishing a colorful artistic homestead in the stark gray landscape. None of that will come to pass, however, now that ispace has confirmed Resilience slammed into the lunar surfance instead of making a delicate four-point "soft landing." Related stories: — What's flying to the moon on ispace's Resilience lunar lander? — Japan's Resilience moon lander aces lunar flyby ahead of historic touchdown try (photo) — Japan's Resilience moon lander arrives in lunar orbit ahead of June 5 touchdown Despite the failed Resilience landing, ispace has big lunar goals. The company plans to launch two moon missions in 2027, Mission 3 and Mission 4, that will use a larger, more capable lander named Apex 1.0. That lander will weigh 2 tons, much larger than Resilience. "We know it's not going to be easy," ispace director and CFO Jumpei Nozaki said during the press conference. "But it's hard. It has some meaning and significance of trying." Nozaki said he and ispace felt extremely sorry to have disappointed the company's 80,000 supporters and stockholders, and were determined to learn from the experimence in the designs fo Mission 3 and Mission 4. Hakamada, when asked by a reporter if he or the team had cried after the failed landing, said it wasn't a time for crying. "Right now, we don't know the cause, so I can't get emotional and cry," he said. "I don't think that's a good idea. The most important thing is to find out the cause for this second failure." Editor's note: This story, originally posted at 5 p.m. ET, was updated at 9:30 p.m ET with new details from ispace's post landing attempt press conference. Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik contributed to this report.
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3 ancient Maya cities discovered in Guatemala, 1 with an 'astronomical complex' likely used for predicting solstices
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of three Maya cities in the Petén jungle of Guatemala. The cities are about 3 miles (5 kilometers) apart and are arranged like a triangle, Guatemala's Ministry of Culture and Sports reported in a translated statement. The cities were settled sometime during a period that archaeologists call the "middle preclassic," which occurred between roughly 1000 and 400 B.C. They were inhabited until around 1,100 years ago, when many Maya cities in the region collapsed. The most important of the three cities is a site archaeologists are calling "Los Abuelos," which means "the grandparents." This name comes from two stone sculptures found at the site: one of a man and another of a woman. They are believed to depict ancestors of those who lived at the site, the statement said, noting that this city may have been a ceremonial center for those who lived in the area. Los Abuelos thrived during the Middle Preclassic (1000 B.C. to 400 B.C.) and Late Preclassic periods (400 B.C. to A.D. 300) before being abandoned and then reinhabited during the Late Classic period (A.D. 600 to 900). It has an astronomical complex with buildings positioned in such a way that solstices and equinoxes can be recorded precisely, the statement said. The remains of a human burial were found at the site, along with the remains of two felines, pottery vessels, shells and arrowheads. Archaeologists also discovered an altar in the shape of a frog and an engraved stone slab known as a stela. Once the Mayan writing on the stela is translated, it may provide more information about the site and the people who lived there. Another newly found city, which archaeologists named "Petnal," has a 108-foot-tall (33 meters) pyramid, the statement said. The top of the pyramid is flat and has a room that houses the remains of murals on its walls. Red, white and black from the murals can still be seen, but more research is needed to determine what the murals depict. Petnal was likely a political center, according to the statement. A frog-shaped altar was also found there. The frog is perceived as a symbol of fertility and rebirth in Maya mythology, wrote researchers Robert Sharer and Loa Traxler in their book "The Ancient Maya: Sixth Edition" (Stanford University Press, 2006). Frog altars have been found at other Maya sites and presumably would have been used in rituals. The third newly found city, which the archaeologists dubbed "Cambrayal," has a network of canals that originates in a water reservoir at the top of a palace, the statement reported. The main purpose of the canals may have been for removing waste. "It's especially exciting to learn about the Los Abuelos site," Megan O'Neil, an associate professor of art history at Emory University who was not part of the excavation team, told Live Science in an email. The stone sculptures found at the site "are especially poignant and are similar to many other examples of Maya people making offerings to vital sculptures and connecting with their ancestors by interacting with sculptures from the past." RELATED STORIES —'Stunning' discovery reveals how the Maya rose up 4,000 years ago —Ancient Maya 'blood cave' discovered in Guatemala baffles archaeologists —Genomes from ancient Maya people reveal collapse of population and civilization 1,200 years ago O'Neil noted that it was important that archaeologists found the remains of intact ceramic vessels during their excavation. In the past, this region was heavily looted and the pottery made by the ancient Maya was taken and sold on the international market. The new finds may "help reconnect items in private and museum collections with their places of origin and deposition, helping return memory to those ceramics, to these sites, and to Maya people living in this region and across the world," O'Neil said. The discoveries of the three cities, along with other newly found sites in the region, were made by a team of archaeologists from Slovakia and Guatemala who were part of the Uaxactún Archaeological Project (PARU), which searches for Maya ruins near the Maya city of Uaxactún. Since 2009, PARU has discovered 176 sites, although only 20 have been excavated. Live Science reached out to archaeologists involved with the research, but they did not answer questions by the time of publication.
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Japanese spacecraft goes dark during attempted moon landing. Its payload would have been a world-first.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The status of a private Japanese moon lander — which was carrying Europe's first lunar rover — is in question after ground control suddenly lost contact with the spacecraft on Thursday (June 5). Mission control lost contact with the lander, known as "Resilience," at 3:17 p.m ET, just as it was attempting a lunar touchdown. The rover, known as "Tenacious," is one of several payloads carried aboard Resilience, the second Hakuto-R lander made and operated by Japanese company ispace. The spacecraft attempted to touch down in an unexplored region of the moon's northern hemisphere known as Mare Frigoris, or the "Sea of Cold," after spending just over a month in lunar orbit. After several hours, ground control has yet to reestablish contact with the lander, and the status of its payload is unknown. "We have not yet been able to establish communication with RESILIENCE, but ispace engineers in our Mission Control Center are continuing to work to contact the lander," ispace representatives wrote in a statement posted to X. "We will share an update with the latest information in a media announcement in the next few hours." Resilience is the third Japanese lander to attempt to touch down on the moon, following ispace's first Hakuto-R lander, which crash-landed in April 2023 after losing contact with its operators in orbit, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's SLIM lander (or "moon sniper"), which landed upside down in January 2024 but unexpectedly survived two lunar nights. Resilience launched Jan. 15 on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Live Science's sister site reported at the time. The same rocket also launched Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which successfully landed on the moon on March 2, after taking a more direct route. Related: 'Everything has changed since Apollo': Why landing on the moon is still incredibly difficult If successful, Resilience would be just the second private lunar lander to complete a soft landing on the moon. Its main payload, the Tenacious rover, would be the first European-built vehicle to roam the moon. Tenacious is small, measuring roughly 21 inches (54 centimeters) long and weighing just 11 pounds (5 kilograms). But its most-talked-about payload — a tiny, red house dubbed "The Moonhouse" — is even teenier, standing just 4 inches (10 cm) tall. The art piece, dubbed the "first house on the moon," was created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, who first envisioned the project in 1999. "To me, the Moonhouse is both a shared achievement, something made possible by the efforts of many individuals, but also a profoundly personal thing," Genberg recently told "It's a small house in a vast, empty place, a symbol of belonging, curiosity, and vulnerability." Tenacious planned to roam the Sea of Cold for up to two weeks. It would then likely die during the "lunar night," when its solar panels can no longer collect light, according to ESA. RELATED STORIES —Will Earth ever lose its moon? —Why can't we see the far side of the moon? —How many moons are in the solar system? During this time, the rover would conduct various additional experiments, including using a tiny scoop to collect a small amount of lunar regolith, which could be returned to Earth on a future mission. NASA has already agreed to buy the sample for $5,000, according to Sky News. The Resilience lander is also carrying several other payloads, including the Water Electrolyzer Experiment, which aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of producing oxygen and hydrogen from "lunar water resources"; an algae-based food production module, which would attempt to grow the photosynthetic organism as a potential future food source for lunar astronauts; and the Deep Space Radiation Probe, which would track the amount of radiation the lander will experience on the moon, according to
