Big Rip

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This article is about a physics concept. For the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Game Network, see The Big Rip.

The Big Rip is a cosmological hypothesis about the ultimate fate of the Universe, in which the elements of the universe, from galaxies to atoms, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe.

The hypothesis relies crucially on the type of dark energy in the universe. The key value is the equation of state w, the ratio between the dark energy pressure and its energy density. At w < − 1, the universe will eventually be pulled apart. Such energy is called phantom energy, a more extreme form of quintessence.

In a phantom energy dominated universe the "fabric" of the universe expands at an ever increasing rate. However, this implies that the size of the observable universe is continually shrinking; the distance to the edge of the observable universe which is moving away at the speed of light from any point gets ever closer. When the size of the observable universe is smaller than any particular structure, then no interaction between the furthest parts of the structure can occur, neither gravitational nor electromagnetic (nor weak or strong), and they will be ripped apart.

First, the galaxies would be separated from each other. Arguably, this is what is happening right now, with galaxies that move outside the observable universe (approximately 46.5 billion light years away). About 60 million years before the end, gravity would be too weak to hold the Milky Way and other individual galaxies together. Approximately three months before the end, the Solar system will be gravitationally unbound. In the last minutes, stars and planets will be torn apart, and an instant before the end, atoms will be destroyed.

The authors of this hypothesis calculate that the end of the universe as we now know it would be approximately 35 billion years after the Big Bang, or 20 billion years from now.