Adapted from table 10.2 in Barrow & Tipler's "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" (ISBN 0-19-282147-4)
| Event | Timescale (years) |
|---|---|
| Sun leaves Main Sequence | 5 * 10^9 |
| Large clusters evaporate galaxies | 10^11 |
| Stars cease to form; all massive stars have become either neutron stars or black holes | 10^12 |
| Longest lived stars use all their fuel and become white dwarfs | 10^14 |
| Dead planets detached from dead stars by stellar collisions | 10^15 |
| White dwarfs cool to black dwarfs at 5° Kelvin (Proton decay will keep dwarfs at this temperature for 10^30 years) | 10^17 |
| Dead stars (black dwarfs and neutron stars) evaporate from galaxies (approx 90-99% will evaporate; 1-10% will collect in galactic centres to form gigantic black holes) | 10^19 |
| Neutron stars cool to 100° K | 10^19 |
| Orbits of remaining planets decay by gravitational radiation | 10^20 |
| Dead stars evaporate from galactic clusters (black dwarfs are at 5° K and neutron stars at 100° K due to proton decay; background radiation has cooled to 10^-13° K) | 10^23 |
| At this stage matter consists of about 90% dead stars, 9% black holes, and 1% atomic hydrogen and helium | |
| Protons decay (according to SU(5) GUT) | 10^31 |
| Dead stars evaporate by proton decay (GUT) | 10^32 |
| All carbon-based life-forms become extinct | 10^34 |
| At this stage most matter in the Universe is in the form of e+, e-, /v, v and gamma | |
| Ordinary matter liquifies due to quantum tunneling | 10^65 |
| Solar mass black holes evaporate by Hawking process | 10^66 |
| In flat and closed universes, most e+ and e- form positronium; in open universes, most e+ and e- remain free | 10^73 |
| Galactic-mass black holes (10^11 solar masses) evaporate by Hawking process | 10^99 |
| In flat and closed universes, positronium decays via cascade, releasing 10^22 photons | 10^117 |
| Supercluster-mass black holes (10^17 solar masses) evaporate by Hawking process | 10^117 |
| Protons decay by Hawking process | 10^122 |
| If ordinary matter survives decay via GUTs or Hawking process, it decays to iron | 10^1500 |
| All iron collapses into black holes | 10^(10^26) |
(After this things begin to look a little bleak).