The Very End of Time

The Big Bang gave birth to our uni­verse. But what will bring it to an absolute end? In 21 min­utes, a mere mega blip of time, this episode of Cos­mic Jour­neys offers an impres­sive visu­al account of this big enchi­la­da ques­tion, tak­ing you across tril­lions of years. The sun will die but make the earth unin­hab­it­able well before­hand. A sim­i­lar process of decay will play itself out across the uni­verse and we will enter the “degen­er­ate era.” Dark ener­gy, dead stars, and black holes will reign supreme. But what will hap­pen in the very, very end, when the cos­mic clock strikes a num­ber known as a “googol” or some time there­after? A lot of that will get sort­ed out by the work physi­cists are now doing with the Large Hadron Col­lid­er, the giant par­ti­cle accel­er­a­tor locat­ed near Gene­va, Switzer­land. Give the video a lit­tle bit of time. The sec­ond half gives you the goods.

Hat tip to Wilter for send­ing this video our way.