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Cosmic Doomsday Scenario: Phantom energy would trigger the Big Rip

By Ron Cowen

- More than 2 years ago

Cosmologists have long speculated about the fate of the universe. Will it expand forever or collapse in a Big Crunch? In the latest model, published online last week, the universe instead ends with a Big Rip–every galaxy, star, planet, molecule, and atom torn asunder–21 billion years from now.

LET ‘ER RIP. Illustration of phantom energy releasing Earth (blue) and other planets from the sun (yellow) and tearing apart each body, 60 million years after the Milky Way would have disassembled.