TIMELINE OF THE FAR FUTURE
© 2025 Dongphil Yoo & Joohyun Park
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1 pixel = 100 years from here.
1 pixel = 100,000 years from here.
1 pixel = 100,000,000 years from here.
The following things will happen in 1 – 120 trillion years from now.
Low estimate for the time until star formation ends in galaxies as galaxies are depleted of the gas clouds they need to form stars.
The universe's expansion, assuming a constant dark energy density, multiplies the wavelength of the cosmic microwave background by 1029, exceeding the scale of the cosmic light horizon and rendering its evidence of the Big Bang undetectable. However, it may still be possible to determine the expansion of the universe through the study of hypervelocity stars.
Estimated time until the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun at a distance of 4.25 light-years, leaves the main sequence and becomes a white dwarf.
Estimated time until the red dwarf VB 10, as of 2016 the least massive main sequence star with an estimated mass of 0.075 M☉, runs out of hydrogen in its core and becomes a white dwarf.
Estimated time for stars (including the Sun) to undergo a close encounter with another star in local stellar neighborhoods. Whenever two stars (or stellar remnants) pass close to each other, their planets\' orbits can be disrupted, potentially ejecting them from the system entirely. On average, the closer a planet\'s orbit to its parent star the longer it takes to be ejected in this manner, because it is gravitationally more tightly bound to the star.
High estimate for the time until normal star formation ends in galaxies. This marks the transition from the Stelliferous Era to the Degenerate Era; with no free hydrogen to form new stars, all remaining stars slowly exhaust their fuel and die.
Time by which all stars in the universe will have exhausted their fuel (the longest-lived stars, low-mass red dwarfs, have lifespans of roughly 10–20 trillion years). After this point, the stellar-mass objects remaining are stellar remnants (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes) and brown dwarfs.
Collisions between brown dwarfs will create new red dwarfs on a marginal level: on average, about 100 stars will be shining in what was once the Milky Way. Collisions between stellar remnants will create occasional supernovae.
In 1 quadrillion – 100 quintillion years, these three things will happen.
Estimated time until stellar close encounters detach all planets in star systems (including the Solar System) from their orbits.
By this point, the Sun will have cooled to five degrees above absolute zero.
Estimated time until 90%–99% of brown dwarfs and stellar remnants (including the Sun) are ejected from galaxies. When two objects pass close enough to each other, they exchange orbital energy, with lower-mass objects tending to gain energy. Through repeated encounters, the lower-mass objects can gain enough energy in this manner to be ejected from their galaxy. This process eventually causes the Milky Way to eject the majority of its brown dwarfs and stellar remnants.
Estimated time until the Earth collides with the black dwarf Sun due to the decay of its orbit via emission of gravitational radiation, if the Earth is not ejected from its orbit by a stellar encounter or engulfed by the Sun during its red giant phase.
Now, let's go to the further future.
Estimated time until those stars not ejected from galaxies (1%–10%) fall into their galaxies' central supermassive black holes. By this point, with binary stars having fallen into each other, and planets into their stars, via emission of gravitational radiation, only solitary objects (stellar remnants, brown dwarfs, ejected planets, black holes) will remain in the universe.
Assuming that protons do not decay, estimated time for rigid objects, from free-floating rocks in space to planets, to rearrange their atoms and molecules via quantum tunneling. On this timescale, any discrete body of matter "behaves like a liquid" and becomes a smooth sphere due to diffusion and gravity.
Estimated time until a supermassive black hole with a mass of 20 trillion solar masses decays by the Hawking process. This marks the end of the Black Hole Era. Beyond this time, if protons do decay, the Universe enters the Dark Era, in which all physical objects have decayed to subatomic particles, gradually winding down to their final energy state in the heat death of the universe.
Let's go further –
closer to the end of the universe.
Or the beginning maybe.
High estimate for the time for the Universe to reach its final energy state, even in the presence of a false vacuum.