Big Rip

Basic Information

The Big Rip is a potential Ultimate Fate of the Universe scenario. It's sort of the inverse of the Big Crunch. In the Big Rip model, Phantom Dark Energy continues to expand the Universe, bigger and bigger, faster and faster. Eventually the expansion of the universe accelerates to the point where planets and stars are torn apart. Shortly thereafter, all matter in the universe will be ripped into elementary particles, and shoot apart from each other in infinite speeds.

The Big Rip was first proposed by scientists in 2003. It's not expected to occur until about 50 Billion years from now.

Sources

Bibliography

1. NonFiction TV: The Universe on the History Channel

2. Wikipedia

Game and Story Use

• There I was, enjoying a nice after-dinner cocktail at The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, when all of sudden, my martini started elongating, radiating and falling apart. How dreadful - especially at those prices. I still paid the bill before I left, of course, but I didn't tip.
• Could be heck of a disaster scenario to plague those in the far, far future. Especially if the Big Rip doesn't happen evenly, but effects parts of the universe more than other. Like a rip in reality it slowly tears outward from a handful of places, and all of galactic civilization becomes nomads in a vain attempt to escape it.
• A sufficiently advanced alien might be the sole survivor (or a displaced refugee from a diaspora) of when his or her home universe tore itself apart.