COSMIC DEATH BUBBLE

The details of this death by bubble are fairly complicated, but it is based on the idea that the universe is metastable, which means it's not in its lowest or most stable energy state. While we're okay for now, there's the (remote) possibility that the universe could drop into a lower energy state, which would set off a giant light-speed bubble that destroys everything it touches. The idea came about with the discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012. The find was revolutionary, confirming much of what scientists had previously hypothesized. But it also confirmed the idea of a potential death bubble, suggesting that a so-called Higgs Field permeates the universe, giving particles mass. Though the field is currently in a stable energy state, measurements of the Higgs Boson suggest that the energy state could change. So when should we expect the Higgs Field to release this bubble that will disintegrate our nuclei and turn the universe into a soup of molecules and atoms. Researchers calculate that the formation and collapse of a particle called an intanton will likely set off the Death Bubble between 10 quinquadragintillion and 10 octodecillion years.