It’s Official: The Universe Is Slowly Dying (No Need To Panic Yet)

Don't worry, guys: The world isn't ending anytime soon (knock on wood). But the universe is officially in its golden years, and one of these days it's definitely going to die. Sad — and terrifying — but true. A new study released via the European Southern Observatory affirms the same thing astronomers have been saying for years: The Big Bang was the beginning, and heat death is ultimately the end. And an international team composed of around 100 scientists has new findings to that effect. Using the world's most powerful telescopes, the team studied energy from 200,000 galaxies and determined that the cosmos is giving off only 50% of the energy it radiated 2 billion years ago. "The universe has basically sat down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket, and is about to nod off for an eternal doze," astronomer Simon Driver, who led the research team, told CNN. His colleague, Luke Davis, clarified that this doesn't mean the universe will simply disappear one day. "It will just grow old forever, slowly converting less and less mass into energy as billions of years pass by until, eventually, it will become a cold, dark, and desolate place, where all of the lights go out," he explained. Before you decide to cross every item off your #YOLO list and stop paying your credit-card bill, keep in mind that the death of the universe is trillions of years away. That's plenty of time before the lights go out, so you're going to have to keep being a responsible human — at least for the foreseeable future. Now, about that climate-change thing...