Monty Python voice: "Start Again."

Here’s an interesting bit from New Scientist (5 March 2016) – “Universe Could End Before the Sun Dies.”  Kind of reassuring in a perverse way, isn’t it? 

Of course the usual boring assumption is that the stars will drift further and further apart as they age, and eventually the whole gemillah will cool into the Heat Death of the Universe. 

But if, as many people think, the amount of dark energy is increasing, the acceleration that is pushing stuff apart will also increase, until (as the article says) “the very fabric of space-time tears itself apart in a “big rip.”  (I don’t know why they didn’t capitalize it.)

This big rip might happen as early as 2.8 billion years from now – but the sun isn’t expected to burn out for another five billion.

So what will it be like around here if we have a sun, but no universe?  The fabric of space-time having torn itself into tatters?  Will bits of it get stuck in our teeth?

I just thought I’d posit this in case you don’t have enough to worry about.  With Trump and all.

Joe