But it seems that our universe is never going to experience the Big Crunch. Everything seems to point in the direction that our cosmos simply contains too little matter for it to be able to compete with dark energy. A universe with a high amount of dark energy will reach a somewhat less poetic end.
As I have already mentioned multiple times, space-time constantly expands. Each second, millions of cubic metres of new space are created and are woven into existing space-time. Imagine that you are standing on the surface of a giant inflating balloon. While the balloon is expanding, all other objects on its surface are undoubtedly getting further and further apart from you, but their own size does not change. Our universe experiences a similar effect.
You may ask how it is possible that we do not feel the expansion of the cosmos. Should not all objects around us inexorably increase their distance from us? Should not all atoms of our own bodies run away in all direction as new space-time is created between them? They should, but there are three mighty forces that prevent them from doing so – gravity, strong interaction and electromagnetism.
Let us go back to our balloon analogy. How can we prevent all the other objects on the surface of the balloon from growing away? We grab them. For instance, if there was a different person with us on the balloon, we could just grab their hand and everything would be fine. As long as the force of our grip was greater than the friction between the bottom of our shoes and the surface of the balloon, we would undoubtedly stay together.
And electromagnetism along with gravity resist dark energy in a similar way. Our galaxy is not scattered through the entire universe, since the gravitational force between individual stars is greater than the force with which dark energy tries to separate them. Our bodies are not ripped into pieces, as the electromagnetic force between atoms and molecules is multiple times stronger than its counterpart in the form of dark energy.
But a universe whose fate is the Big Rip is not going to stay this way forever. In such a cosmos, the power of dark energy keeps perpetually increasing. At first, everything is going to stay the same, but remarkable things are going to happen after that.
Galaxies will be the first objects to feel the growing force of dark energy. It overpowers the gravitational attraction among the stars of the Milky Way, which will be mercilessly split from a single whole into billions of luminous dots millions of light years apart. The Solar System will come next. The Earth will be torn out of ours star’s gravitational field and will say goodbye to all the other objects of the Solar System.
Then, even electromagnetism will give up and all objects around us without exception will be changed beyond recognition. Our bodies will be ruthlessly ripped into individual protons and neutrons, which will escape in all directions and go on an eternal journey through space-time.
And eventually, even strong interaction will submit to the all-powerful dark energy. Composite particles will be ripped into elementary particles. The universe will become a gigantic wasteland. Its only inhabitants will be immensely lonely particles, each of them billions of light years away from its closest neighbours. The expansion of space will irreversibly go on forever.
Keishinrei 