The Big Rip

If dark energy grows stronger over time — a scenario called phantom energy — expansion eventually tears apart everything.

What makes the Big Rip unique is its deadline. Unlike the slow fade of the Big Freeze, this ending arrives at a finite moment that physicists could, in principle, calculate. The tearing also speeds up: galaxies come apart in the final months, planets in the last minutes, and atoms only in the closing fraction of a second.