BAD NEWS: Alarming study reveals the universe will end much, much sooner than previously estimated.

It’s the end of the world as we know it — a lot sooner than we think.

A team of researchers have drastically scaled back the going estimate of how long it will be until the universe ceases to exist.

Previously, scientists believed it would be 10¹¹⁰⁰ years until the very last objects in the cosmos would disappear forever — that’s a 1 followed by 1,100 zeroes, in layman’s terms.

But a new study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics by a trio of researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands posits the real figure as closer to 10⁷⁸ years, or a 1 followed by just 78 zeroes, Science Aim writes.

Make no mistake, 10⁷⁸ years is a long, long, long time. But the difference between 10⁷⁸ years and 10¹¹⁰⁰ years is so enormous that it’s unfathomable to the human mind.

Some exceptions, such as Alvy Singer, apply: