Dark matter dominated the early universe and dark energy will reign billions of years from now. We seem to be living in a strangely special era

Still, it seems we live in a special time where neither entity is able to dominate the other. According to Andrew Pontzen at University College London, this golden age started around 3 billion years ago and will last for perhaps another 6 billion. “But if you fast forward 10 billion years or so into the future,” he says, “the matter we are made of will seem like a wisp in an overwhelmingly dark-energy-dominated universe. And that will last for the rest of time.”