The "God Particle" otherwise known as the Higgs Boson particle has the power to ultimately destroy the universe, warns renowned theoretical physicist, Prof. Stephen Hawking.

Peter Higgs first hypothesized this particle in the 1960s using the electroweak theory that shows the origins of W and Z bosons. The Higgs Boson was later discovered by the Centre Européen de Recherche Nucleaire or CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland.

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According to Hawking, the Higgs Boson could become very unstable during high energy levels, causing an intense, catastrophic vacuum decay that could make space and time collapse.

Although the possibility of this collapse in our lifetime is extremely unlikely, Hawking stresses scientists don't yet possess a particle accelerator large enough to produce such risky conditions.

He warns about this probable catastrophe in a new book, Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space, which is a collection of essays by scientists and astronomers.

Hawking writes the Higgs' potential possesses a most worrisome nature that might escalate and become megastable at energies above 100bn giga electron volts (GeV).

When this happens, the universe could experience a catastrophic vacuum decay, meaning spacetime undergoes a phase transition that tunnels into a low energy state, with a bubble of true vacuum expanding at the speed of light.

Hawking warns this could happen at any time and no one will see it coming. Hawking reassures the world this event is highly unlikely to happen in the near future.

He said that for a particle accelerator to reach energies above 100bn GeV, it would be monumentally larger than the entire Earth.

Particle accelerators function by increasing the speed at which sub-atomic particles travel in order to collide them by using magnetic and electrical fields. The most famous particle accelerator is the Large Hadron Collider at CERN where the Higgs Boson was discovered.

The Higgs Boson particle is believed to be the key element responsible for giving matter its mass but scientists and physicists are still observing and studying its role.  

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