The universe as we know it could cease to exist at any moment, the Daily Mail reported.
It's more likely than ever that the universe could collapse and everything in it would be compressed into a small, hard ball, according to theoretical physicists. Researchers said the process may have already started in our cosmos and is deconstructing the rest of the universe.
Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark claim they can prove the likelihood of this concept with mathematical equations.
"New calculations from physicists at the University of Southern Denmark now confirm this prediction - and they also conclude that the risk of a collapse is even greater than previously thought," the researchers stated in a press release.
The theorists believe that sooner or later a radical shift in the forces of the universe will cause every particle in it to become extremely heavy. The contents within the universe, from every grain of sand to every planet and every galaxy, will become billions of times heavier than it is now.
This development is called a "phase transition" and it is similar to the procedure water goes through when it turns to steam or when magnet heats up and loses its power.
"Many theories and calculations predict such a phase transition- but there have been some uncertainties in the previous calculations," Jens Frederik Colding Krog, PhD student at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology at University of Southern Denmark and co-author of an article on the subject in the Journal of High Energy Physics, said in a statement.
According to the Higgs theory, a phase transition took place one tenth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, causing a shift in the fabric of space-time. As a result, empty space became filled with a substance that scientists now call the Higgs field, which is an invisible energy field that exists everywhere in the universe.
With the help of mathematical equations, researchers discovered that the Higgs field could exist in two states, just like matter can exist, as a liquid or a solid.
In the latter state, the Higgs field is exponentially dense than what scientists have already observed.
If this ultra-dense Higgs field exists, then a 'bubble' of this state could suddenly appear in a certain place of the universe at anytime, similar to when water is boiled. Then the bubble will expand, turning the Higgs field from its current state into a new one
As a result of the expanding bubble, all elementary particles inside the fizz will reach a mass much heavier than if they were outside the bubble, and they would be pulled together to form supermassive centres.
The theory of phase transition is not the only theory predicting a collapse of the universe. Also the so-called Big Crunch theory is in play.
The theory is based on the Big Bang, which formed the universe. According to a press reelase, after the Big Bang all material was ejected into the universe from one small area, and this expansion is still happening. At some point, however, the expansion will stop and all the material will again begin to attract each other and eventually merge into a small area again.
"The latest research shows that the universe's expansion is accelerating, so there is no reason to expect a collapse from cosmological observations. Thus it will probably not be Big Crunch that causes the universe to collapse," Krog said.
Krog said the universe will certainly collapse, researchers just don't know when.
"Now we have performed more precise calculations, and we see two things: Yes, the universe will probably collapse, and: A collapse is even more likely than the old calculations predicted," Krog said.
Krog added the process will start from somewhere in the universe and spread from there.
"Maybe the collapse has already started somewhere in the universe and right now it is eating its way into the rest of the universe," she said. "Maybe a collapse is starting right now right here. Or maybe it will start far away from here in a billion years. We do not know."
Despite the new calculations predicting that a collapse is now more likely than ever before, it is also possible, that the process will not happen at all.
