This timeline is a work in progress.
- 2001: Evidence for a black hole at the center of our galaxy is found. Spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker safely lands on the asteroid 433 Eros, February 15. United States launched the Genesis mission to study solar wind particles.
- 2002: First planet detected orbiting a giant star. Mars Odyssey achieves possible identification of significant amounts of frozen water.
- ??: ??
- 100 Trillion Years After The Big Bang: The Stellar Era Ends: If the universe continues to expand and does not collapse under its own gravity, it will slowly wither away. Right now, most of the energy in the universe is in the form of stars. That energy will slowly disperse until the age of stars is over.
- 100 Trillion to 1037 Years After The Big Bang:The Degenerate Era: The majority of the universe's mass is now in the form of degenerate stars, ones that have blown up and collapsed into black holes and neutron stars, or have deteriorated into white dwarfs. Energy is no longer primarily generated by the stars, but from decay of protons and particle annihilation.
- 1038 to 10100 Years After The Big Bang: Black Hole Era: Now that the decay of protons has ceased to be the dominating factor, the only stellar-like objects left are black holes of widely varying mass. They are starting to evaporate at an increasing speed.
- 10100 Years After The Big Bang: Protons have all decayed and the black holes have evaporated. The only thing remaining are the waste products from the previous self-destructive processes. These are mostly photons of huge wavelengths, electrons, and positrons. Our universe has mostly dissipated.
- Beyond 10100 Years After The Big Bang: The Big Crunch: One scenario for the end of the universe states that when the universe stops its expansion, it will ever so slowly at first, but gaining speed as it goes, will begin to collapse. Eventually, it will become an infinitely small point of infinite density and infinite temperature. Will it then begin the cycle all over again with another Big Bang? Who knows?
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