After the furies of birth, the mature cosmos now evolves more slowly. Stars will continue to form for as long as another 100 trillion years (about 10,000 times the present age of the universe), which leaves plenty of time for slow-building cosmic phenomena to occur.

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17 Comments

1. 1. live.the.future 10:13 PM 2/20/12

   Over a decade ago I compiled a similar timeline from various sources. Mine is more detailed, but as this was a Geocities page (which is now defunct), it also hasn't been updated in some time. Anyway, it's still available on archive.org if anyone's interested: http://web.archive.org/web/20090808001542/http://geocities.com/dreamer-71/timescales.html

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2. 2. live.the.future in reply to live.the.future 10:14 PM 2/20/12

   Shortened URL: http://bit.ly/x1Syme
   

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3. 3. AngelLopezUCB 12:57 AM 2/21/12

   Makes you wonder: What will happen after those final galactic scale black holes evaporate? Will the universe continue as an eternal abyss of nothing? Or will it collapse on itself, causing cosmic deflation, and a return of the universe into an incredibly tiny area with an incredibly dense mass, thus replenishing the conditions necessary for a big bang?

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4. 4. thevillagegeek in reply to live.the.future 01:24 AM 2/21/12

   I'm having some difficulty spotting the age of Geocities in either of the time lines. Is it somewhere in the age of dotcom hyperinflation?

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5. 5. And Then What? in reply to AngelLopezUCB 10:05 AM 2/21/12

   If you think about the possible curvature of Spacetime in such a way that what we perceive as an expansion could actually be a collapse then maybe it is happening already.
   When thinking about Energy, Matter, and their relationship to each other and to Spacetime itself it may be helpful to recall an old adage: “Do as I say not as I do”. Spacetime imposes rules and regulations on Energy and Matter as a Parent would on a Child. We call these Physical Laws and pat ourselves on the back when we discover them. This should not be taken to mean that the Parent (Spacetime) has any desire or duty to obey the rules it imposes on Energy and Matter. This is basically why Spacetime can violate the maximum velocity of light or any other rule it likes, at least as far we know now any way.
   
   

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6. 6. luhng 05:43 PM 2/22/12

   for one thing, "BIG BLA" is very vague. Lets take a look at the possibilties of the black holes in space. for instance one turns one way the other the other way so what is going on we might ask? ☺☻ Male & Female>>>>>

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7. 7. geojellyroll 06:20 PM 2/23/12

   "Stars will continue to form for as long as another 100 trillion years (about 10,000 times the present age of the universe)"
   
   And the universe will go on for trillions of years after that.
   
   This is what has always puzzled me most about the Universe. The odds seem too astronomical (excuse the pun) that the universe would only be 13.5 billion years old: Hardly a fraction of a fraction of 1 percent of how old it could be at any random time. It's like putting a million tickets into a barrel numbered one to a million and randomly drawing the number 'one'.

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8. 8. mcsteph in reply to geojellyroll 11:28 PM 2/23/12

   But the "ticket" you drew is necessarily one at a time when intelligent life has arisen and is not yet extinct. For most of the last 13 billion years, no such ticket has been available; and for much of the last trillions, there probably won't be either.

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9. 9. Mike Barry 02:34 AM 2/24/12

   Okay, so you're saying I shouldn't sign up for the life-time plan; is that it?

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10. 10. Pvaldesmarin in reply to And Then What? 10:32 AM 2/24/12

    I would rather think that Energy and Matter are the Parents and Spacetime the Child.

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11. 11. planetech09 10:53 AM 2/24/12

    I offer this thought,someday man will be intelligent enough to understand-if we don't commit suicide with that knowledge! and lets not forget about dark energy&matter in the mix as well,we know that they exist--we just have no way of detecting them!

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12. 12. Micmac000 10:57 AM 2/24/12

    To better understand my comment/question, one must know that I'm very scientific in my thinking, and NOT a religious person. However, in my mind, I'm having difficulty getting past the essential foundational building block that the entire "Big Bang" theory rests.
    My question is in two parts: "What went "BANG?" and "Where did 'IT' come from?"
    One cannot answer the first question without explaining the second. And there my friends lies my dilemma.

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13. 13. y.haudiquet 05:36 AM 2/25/12

    After reading the future of stars (march 2012):
    I understand that the stars will become extinct...in some trillion years.
    My question: what happens of all that radiating energy ?
    

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14. 14. David Illig 09:07 AM 2/25/12

    geojellyroll, your perceived "odds" notwithstanding, the age of the Universe, 13.75 billion years plus or minus 110 million years is a measured quantity, not a guess or wishful thinking. You might as well ask what is the probability, in the 100,000-year in the history of Homo sapiens, that you would be alive now--why not 50ky ago or the distant future. The answer is "because that's the way it is."

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15. 15. Robert Campbell 03:11 AM 2/26/12

    Reply to Pvaldesmarin:
    
    I think you would be interested in http://www.cosmic-mindreach.com/Gravity.html and related articles freely available on the website.

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16. 16. plenum in reply to live.the.future 06:55 AM 3/2/12

    Excellent timeline.
    ----------
    Proton decay - hadn't thought about for a while! Thanks for posting! Really interesting...

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17. 17. truth2000 02:03 PM 3/16/12

    Since we don't really know what caused the big bang I think that at the end there will be another big bang and it will all start again.

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