I found myself contemplating the heavens a couple of days ago. You know, the fact that the sun is going to burn itself out a few million years from now. But, as it slowly burns out, it will expand. The heat will engulf the earth, turning it into a furnace of molten rock and lava, and all life on earth will cease to exist.

I thought about our galaxy, the Milky Way, spinning in space, and Andromeda, another galaxy, on a collision course with us at 300,000 miles an hour.

I remembered, that located in the center of the Milky Way, is a black hole. Whose gravitational pull is drawing every star in our galaxy, closer and closer, slowly pulling them in. It’s tearing them apart, molecule by molecule, and atom by atom, until there’s nothing.

The universe itself, has numerous black holes. No one knows the exact number. What is known, is that they’re devouring everything they can draw near. They will slowly consume all matter in the universe, and then turn on each other. When only one is left, it will slowly die because nothing is left for it to feed on. The universe will be nothing but a huge black emptiness. Even our universe can’t escape death.

All this will occur over millions, billions, perhaps a google of years. Of course, there are rumors of parallel universes. Maybe you can escape to one of these, if you manage to live that long. Given mans average life span of 76 or 77 years, and the fact that I’m already 60, maybe I shouldn’t be overly concerned with physics, especially at this stage of life. Maybe I should worry more about things I can directly influence, like my golf game.