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Physicists Predict Universe May End in Big Crunch

10/12/2025

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Summary

Story summary

An international team of physicists proposes the universe may not expand forever but could end in a Big Crunch, published in The Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
The researchers say the universe will reach a maximum size and then collapse as the cosmological constant, once thought positive, becomes negative.
Collapse could begin in about 11 billion years and end in a swift singularity.

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Story summary

An international team of physicists proposes the universe may not expand forever but could end in a Big Crunch, published in The Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
The researchers say the universe will reach a maximum size and then collapse as the cosmological constant, once thought positive, becomes negative.
Collapse could begin in about 11 billion years and end in a swift singularity.