The Universe
As you may know, our universe was created 13.75 billion years ago, in an event known as the Big Bang. Scientists believe that the Big Bang wasn’t like an explosion, more like all of the energy in the universe crammed into one tiny dot speeding away from each other. Many scientists believe that our universe is expanding, so the universe now would be a lot bigger than the universe 13 billion years ago. Our universe is defined as all of the space, planets, stars, galaxies, asteroids, nebulas, black holes, comets, moons and gamma-ray bursts. In short, everything is the universe. However, if things, like the universe, have a beginning, shouldn’t they have an end?
Big Bang and Big Crunch?
There are three main theories of what is happening to the universe. The first is that it is expanding endlessly. This means that the universe will keep on expanding without stopping. The second is that the universe will expand until a certain point, and then remain like it is. The third is that the universe will keep on expanding until a certain point, then it gets crushed by its own gravity until the universe collapses under its own gravity in an event known as the Big Crunch. The only one of these that are likely to wipe out our planet is the Big Crunch, so that’s what we’ll focus on this page.
So what is the Big Crunch exactly?
In theory, the Big Crunch occurs when the universe reaches a certain mass. Gravity will start to squeeze the universe, pushing all the galaxies closer towards each other. Eventually all of the matter in the Universe will collapse into a super dense state and possibly even collapse into an unimaginably massive black hole. Some even believe that the Universe could collapse into the same state that it began as and then blow up in another Big Bang. In this way the Universe would last forever but would continually go through these phases of expansion and contraction, Big Bang and Big Crunch and so on...
How might the Big Crunch destroy our planet?
This is pretty simple to answer. If the universe contracts, won’t the Earth come into contact with asteroids and stuff? We could be destroyed by an asteroid or planet by flying into them. Then again, we might not. However, when the universe shrinks into a tiny hole, well, you’ll know what’ll happen.
Likelihood
The likelihood of us being destroyed or eradicated by the Big Crunch isn’t that high. First, the Big Crunch is only one of three options that could happen to our universe. Then, it’ll take ages (a fair bit of a trillion years) to even start shrinking. After that, it’ll take even longer for the universe to reach the point of our planet actually being exposed to any harm. In all of that time, any one of the other things listed in this website could’ve happened to us, so my rating is:
1/10
1/10
