Ask Ethan: How dark will the Universe become?

"Everything that's now living will someday die. This doesn't just extend to living beings, but to all sources that use some sort of fuel and emit energy: eventually, as demanded by the laws of thermodynamics, all of that energy-liberating activity will cease. Stars will go dark, stellar remnants will fade away, and even black holes will evaporate."

"In the far future, our Universe will become something that's virtually unrecognizable to us today, as our bright, star-and-galaxy-rich cosmos will transform into a sparse, dark landscape from which precious few signals could ever be detected."

"It's remarkable that this is a question we know how to answer today, because just a few decades ago, our best answers would have looked awfully different. Given what we know today, can we say anything important about the path to that end state, and how dark the Universe, as well as our galaxy, will become over time?"

All energy-producing entities in the Universe, from living beings to stars and black holes, must eventually cease functioning according to thermodynamic laws. Stars will fade, stellar remnants will disappear, and even black holes will evaporate, transforming the bright cosmos into a sparse, dark landscape. By measuring current star formation rates and recognizing that roughly 95% of all stars that will ever form have already done so, scientists can estimate how dark the Universe and our galaxy will become over time. Observing distant galaxies across cosmic distances provides a temporal perspective, revealing how galaxies have evolved since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

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