Uploads from Dr. Becky

Currently Playing: The heat death of the Universe might not be inevitable…

AD | FlexiSpot are having a 10th Anniversary sale with up to 65% OFF! You also have the chance to win free orders. Enter my exclusive code 'C750' and save an extra $50 on the C7 Max ergonomic chair. Shop the Flexispot C7 family: https://go.flexispot.com/F4CZow - US https://go.flexispot.com/4iVu0S - CA https://go.flexispot.com/7m2aoE -10th Anniversary How will the Universe end? Crucially, the future depends on the knife point balance between how much stuff there is in the universe all attracted together by gravity, vs how much energy is being put into the expansion of the Universe pushing everything apart. So us astrophysicists can tackle this problem, but it turns out, there might not be an obvious answer like we first thought... Papers mentioned: Scherrer et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.13705 Penzias & Wilson et al. (1964) - https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1965ApJ...142..419P Reiss et al. (1998) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9805201 Gialama et al. (2025) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.21542 Luu et al. (2025) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.24011 Westhuizen et al. (2025) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.04495 Tada & Terada et al. (2024) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.05722 Peracaula et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.26050 Wang et al. (2025) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.15635 Arnaud de Mattie (DESI collaboration) - https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/04/04/desi-first-results-make-most-precise-measurement-of-expanding-universe/ Previous videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RCQYqwODFM 00:00 - Introduction 01:09 - I - The possible options: e.g. the Big Rip, Big Crunch, Big Freeze and Big Bounce 04:39 - II - How the discovery of dark energy settled on one of those options 07:33 - III - How the latest research on the end of the Universe is changing all of that 13:58 - Bloopers Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst --- 📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): http://lnk.to/DrBecky --- 👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): https://dr-becky.teemill.com/ --- 🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive --- 🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video! --- 👩🏽‍💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars. http://drbecky.uk.com