black hole era

When large amounts of mass are compressed together a black hole is formed. This is essentially a state of extreme curvature of spacetime, such that nothing - not even light - can escape once caught in its field. As time goes on all the cold, clumped matter that characterised the Degenerate Era will inevitably encounter a black hole and be sucked in. All matter will eventually be contained inside black holes, and at that time the cosmos enters the Black Hole Era.

Again it is the case that the apparently irrelevant effects of quantum mechanics have an essential role in the dynamics of the universe. Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle implies that - very rarely - particles will be emitted by black holes (this is called Hawking Radiation). Over an unbelievable amount of time, even the most massive black holes will completely evaporate in this way.

- Fx