Scientists say the universe could tear itself apart. Here's how

When we think about how everything would come to an end, we often imagine that the universe would slowly fade into dark nothingness over time. But there’s a theory, famously known as the Big Rip, that says it could end in the worst way possible. And if that really comes true, the universe would eventually start tearing itself apart and rip apart the very fabric of space itself.

But how could something like that actually happen? Here’s how.

This theory was first introduced in a 2003 paper by Dartmouth physicist Dr. Robert Caldwell, who at that time worked alongside Dr. Marc Kamionkowski and Dr. Nevin Weinberg of Caltech. Even Caldwell said, "In some ways it sounds more like science fiction than fact." 

Explaining this, Dr Marcelo Disconzi, the mathematician at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told The Guardian, “The idea of the Big Rip is that eventually even the constituents of matter would start separating from each other. You’d be seeing all the atoms being ripped apart ... it’s fair to say that it’s a dramatic scenario.”

In 2015, Vanderbilt University professor Marcelo Disconzi worked with physics professors Thomas Kephart and Robert Scherrer and took this theory one step further. The team built a model that estimated when the Big Rip would actually take place. 

As per their estimations, the end of the world could happen in about 22 billion years from now. Their work focused on something called cosmological viscosity, which describes how much resistance the universe has to expanding or contracting. Their model suggests that this resistance has a direct impact on how the universe would eventually break down.

If dark energy ever got strong enough to win out over gravity, the effects would hit largest structures and spread downward. First, the galaxy clusters would be pulled apart and then individual galaxies, then star systems, and ultimately the planets, including the one we live on. 

“Under the rip scenario, dark energy gets stronger, and you get this wild expansion that essentially rips space-time apart,” Dr Marcelo Disconzi added. “The universe would vanish in front of your eyes. Basically, you don’t want to be around for it.”

The Big Rip depends on dark energy acting in a very unusual way. In this scenario, which is known as “phantom energy,” dark energy would grow stronger and stronger over time.

Eventually, the universe would expand so fast that even distant parts of space would recede from each other faster than light. Once that happened, they’d be completely cut off from one another.

Even though this theory is mathematically possible, the Big Rip isn’t considered a likely scenario by most scientists. That is because the theory predicts that even the tiniest structures would eventually be torn apart.

Quarks are a good example of why this scenario is hard to believe. They can’t just be ripped apart because separating them takes so much energy that new quarks form from the vacuum. For many researchers, that’s enough to cast doubt on the whole idea.