The Universe is Decaying Faster Than Expected – But No Need to Lose Sleep Over It

Researchers from Radboud University have concluded that the remnants of stars, known as white dwarfs, will take approximately 10^78 years to evaporate via a process similar to Hawking radiation. This is significantly shorter than previous estimates of 1^1100 years, which did not account for Hawking radiation.

Hawking radiation, theorized by Stephen Hawking, suggests particles can escape black holes due to quantum effects. The Nijmegen researchers propose that other massive objects, like neutron stars and white dwarfs, also emit a similar radiation, leading to their eventual evaporation.

The study also calculated the decay times for the Moon and humans (10^90 years) and found that neutron stars and black holes decay at similar rates due to their comparable densities.