BYO Death Ray: Get ready for the 'big slurp'

Our first BYO Dylan is back with a new story - the prospect of the universe collapsing on itself - possibly today!

Scientists from the University of Southern Denmark think that universe is about to implode, in what some are calling a 'Big Slurp'.

They say that something called a 'phase transition' may occur very soon. It has been "proven" (not really, but the Denmark scientists say they have proven it), that a "shift in the forces of the universe will cause every particle in it to become extremely heavy... essentially squeezing everything into an extremely hot, heavy, tiny ball", reports the Daily Mail.

A basic diagram of a 'phase transition'. Image from the University Of Denmark.

All this comes down to one little thing, specifically one sub-atomic particle called the Higgs Boson. How exactly? The Higgs Boson is what gives mass - or weight - to every particle. If just one Higgs Boson anywhere in the universe switches from its current state to an ultra-dense state it could trigger an implosion. An ultra-dense 'bubble' would appear and then expand at the speed of light until it fills the entire universe. All elementary particles inside the bubble will be millions of billions of times heavier than if they were outside the bubble, and they would be pulled together by gravity to form super-massive centres.

The universe will collapse into a single point called a singularity. This is the opposite of the Big Bang, where a singularity expanded into the universe we know today.

This theory is quite frightening and, compared to other research on the end-of-the-universe problem, it is more likely to occur sooner rather than later. It could even be happening in the outer rims of the universe right now!

"Maybe the collapse has already started somewhere in the universe and right now is eating its way into the rest of the universe... or maybe it will start far away from here in a billion years," PhD student Jens Krog told the Daily Mail.

No one knows for sure.

The Danish scientists say that if their calculations are correct then the implosion will definitely happen, but if there are undiscovered elements in the universe these calculations could be all wrong and the 'Big Slurp' might not happen at all.

The universe...imploding? An artists impression of a "Phase Transition".
Image from the University Of Denmark.

It's dangerous to go out alone...take these...links...!

• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is one of humanity's greatest engineering feats. One of the reasons it was built was to try and prove the existence of the Higgs Boson, and in 2012 they did it.
• If the imminent implosion of the universe isn't scary enough for you, you could read astronomer Phil Plait's book Death from the Skies!: These are the Ways the World Will End...

Also by Dylan: NASA predicts ozone hole recovery in 2070.

You too can Build Your Own Death Ray! Help build the site by writing for us. Be a science journalist; win prizes; what more could you want? See the link on the right for instructions. It's almost too easy.