How Does The End of Everything Work?

The end of everything is like when your favorite toy falls apart completely and you can’t put it back together.

Imagine you have a big ball that’s bouncing around in space, this is kind of what our universe looks like right now. But one day, instead of slowing down, the ball starts speeding up, and everything gets stretched out until it becomes really thin, almost like paper. This is called the Big Rip, and it's one way the end of everything might happen.

Think about a balloon that you're blowing up, as it gets bigger, the things on its surface get farther apart. Now imagine if the balloon were made out of really thin paper, and you kept blowing until it ripped all over at once. That’s what happens in the Big Rip, everything is pulled apart so fast that even atoms can’t hold together anymore.

Another way the end might happen is like when your toy car runs out of batteries and just stops moving, this is called the Big Freeze, where everything slows down until there's no more energy left.