The universe is dying....

[kiwi1960]

The universe is dying: Research

MARCUS STROM

Last updated 11:45, August 11 2015

An impression of what a night sky could look like during the collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. By that time, the sun will have swallowed the Earth.

The evidence is in: The universe is toast.

After a wild youth about six or seven billion years ago, the universe is slowly dying.

But you needn't book your table at the restaurant at the end of the universe just yet – the old age of the cosmos is likely to be very long and drawn out.

How do we know this? Professor Simon Driver at the University of Western Australia and his colleagues have, for the first time, produced the first fully empirical measurement of the energy output of the universe.

And the news is grim.

According to their findings, the universe is currently generating about half the energy it was just two billion years ago.

This means that eventually the universe will stop generating energy and our cosmos will become a lifeless, cold abyss with the light from every star and galaxy snuffed out.

The cold, dark relics of dead stars is all that will be left.

How long will it take?

Driver says: "From here on, there is a gentle decline, which technically will go on forever. In about 100 billion years you'd be very hard pressed to find any optical photons our eyes could detect."

"Of course, by this stage the sun has already swallowed the Earth (in about 5 billion years) and our [Milky Way] galaxy will have merged with Andromeda (in about 10 billion years)."

So it's fair to say that Douglas Adams' "Don't Panic" remains a useful piece of advice in terms of cosmology.

"The universe is settling down on the sofa for a long, eternal slumber but we are still able to look at the photo album of its energetic youth," says Andrew Hopkins, head of research at the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

He says the universe was at its peak in terms of star formation about six or seven billion years ago; about half the age the universe is now.

Hopkins is co-author of the paper Galaxy and Mass Assembly panchromatic data release being presented on Tuesday (NZT) at the general assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Hawaii.

The research is part of the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, the largest multi-wavelength survey ever put together.

Starting with the Anglo-Australian Observatory in NSW, Professor Driver and his colleagues used seven of the world's most powerful telescopes on Earth and in space across 21 wavelengths for five years to measure the energy output of more than 220,000 galaxies.

They looked back 2.3 billion years and found that the universe was producing about 2.5 x 10 to the power of 35 watts of energy per cubic megaparsec of space.

It has now dropped to about 1.5 x 10 to the power of 35 watts per cubic megaparsec. (A megaparsec is about 3.26 million light years.)

The researchers looked at a small slice of the sky across almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum – from the far ultra-violet range, through visible light to the far infra-red and the edges of radio waves.

And while the section examined may seem small – just 0.56 per cent of the whole sky – the data from the 220,000 galaxies is sufficient for the astronomers to be very confident of their findings.

"That sounds like quite a small amount," Hopkins said. "But if you look at the simulated flight through of the galaxies you'll get an impression of just how much information there really is."

So will our descendants of the far future eventually see the stars and galaxies go dark?

Yes, says Hopkins, but probably much earlier than at the time of the energy death of the universe.

"It will be due to the accelerated expansion of the universe that we will eventually stop seeing stars and galaxies.

"Because the universe is expanding, eventually the galaxies will get further and further apart until ultimately – on the scale of hundreds of billions of years – the universe will be a cold, dark isolated place.

"We won't be able to see any other stars or galaxies and any sentient beings alive then will be very, very isolated indeed."

But Driver says death may not be the end of all things: "There is one tiny glimmer of hope."

"We may have been here before," Driver says.

"Theorists believe the early universe also went through a period of inflation (which we're in again now).

"In that case it is argued that it suddenly stopped and dumped the dark energy driving this inflation into normal energy.

"This is highly speculative but it is possible that we're in a recursive universe, which periodically goes through periods of inflation followed by periods of activity and evolution, which eventually dwindle as we enter the next inflationary phase."

So that's something to look forward to.

- SMH

=====================================================================

Not really news, we always knew the universe was going to die....

[Bill Phil]

Nothing ever really changes. It's all energy, just arranged in different ways.

I just hope that the universe is cyclic... Death and rebirth.

[HoloYolo]

Imagine if we're the only universe to ever be made into the universe. Terrifying, but at least we were the first and only.

Then again, being that way is a sad way to think of things. Let us hope that like that one Futurama episode, our universe comes back as the same thing over and over again.

[RainDreamer]

Nothing last forever, even the universe. It has been dying the moment it is born.

Is there a link to the original article though? I wonder about copyright issues when copy and paste the whole thing...

Then again, I don't think the author will bother.

[Sampa]

well...this was rather...depressing...

[Hal]

Hmmm. I find it a little odd that he says that 100 billion years from now, there will be no photons our eyes could detect. Maybe that's true if it's all averaged out over the whole volume of the universe, but smallish red dwarf stars are supposed to have lifetimes of up to 10 trillion years, according to Wikipedia. While that is a high bound, even if they only lasted 1 percent of that time, stars that are already formed would still be around, to say nothing of future generations.

Also this is probably just a problem of the article itself (not the scientist), like many popular news articles on science, it doesn't convey the doubt very well. While I am speaking entirely out of my posterior here, not being anything like a cosmologist, I get the impression that when it comes to the overall energy balance of the universe, there's a lot that we don't really get (hence dark matter and energy). I wouldn't take it as gospel.

It is cool though, thanks for sharing.

[WinkAllKerb'']

your binded to time, time not binded to anithing else not even (the) a "universe", rather optimistic.

Edited August 11, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''

[pxi]

Is there a link to the original article though? I wonder about copyright issues when copy and paste the whole thing...

This appears to be the original article.

And this is a rather eyebrow-raising article which seems to be about the author I came across while searching for the original article.

Edited August 11, 2015 by pxi

[baggers]

well...this was rather...depressing...

Nah: Just the fact that our universe exist, mean it's possible to create an universe. We just have to found the source code and how to compile it ^^.

I'm pretty confident with that.

[kiwi1960]

Regarding copyright, my dear friends, worry not, for we (I) have broken no rules or law.

This comes under the classification of "fair use"... provided you acknowledge the author and the book/site you got it from... something I had forgotten to do.

You can use a story from a news site, but you breach copyright laws when you do not give credit OR claim its or own OR take the whole site and post it all under your own name...

This is so bloggers and news outlets can comment on sites or other things without falling foul of the law.

[vger]

Yeesh, the last time I felt such a sense of morbidity on this scale was reading the "distant future" chapter of "The Time Machine."

And I share the sentiment mentioned by others here. I hope we're not the only "incarnation" of the universe that there ever has, or ever will be.

[SomeGuy12]

On the bright side, if 2 billion years has reduced the total energy output of the universe by half, we just might have a solution to the Fermi Paradox.

Current evidence suggests that it took life about 3 billion years to even evolve it's way to us. If 3 billion years ago, the universe was more than twice as bright - meaning it was more than twice as hot, twice as much radiation, etc - and at that point life could evolve here on Earth, on the edge of the galaxy (so less radiation out here), the reason we aren't up to our kneecaps in aliens is because any alien sentients are just now evolving on the edges of their respective galaxies.

It's self apparent that life has a tough time getting started in a hot, high radiation environment - the kinds of simple molecules that get started first are too simple to have any kind of self repair, etc. If the environment is too hot, the molecules will be destroyed faster than they can initially, crudely self replicate, and they never get a "foothold" and a chance to evolve more advanced ways of doing things.

Basically, life has to crawl and slither before it can walk and fly. Living machines that work in high radiation environments are probably possible, but they would need internal data integrity math and self repair systems that repair themselves as fast as they break -> these are hugely complicated systems that are too sophisticated to arrive by chance without a few billion years of evolution.

[baggers]

Reducing "the global output" of the universe by half doesn't account about local conditions. If you read carrefully, it just mean less creations of new stars each year. (half less every 2 billions years) But our star and star life is the same of many star from the beggining of the universe.

[kerbiloid]

Voyagers are 100 AU far from Sun ~= 1.5e-3 light years.

A size of the observable Universe part is 13e9 light years.

13e9/1.5e-3 ~= 1e13 times.

A human size ~ 1e0 m.

1e0/1e13 = 1e-13 m ~ 0.1 picometers

Atom radius ~= 100 picometers.

Nucleus radius ~= 0.01 picometer.

So,

"Our direct physical measurements" or "Our planetary system" / "Observable Universe size"

~=

"Atom or nucleus size" / "Our own size".

Do you really think that one atom can describe the total human body according to its minuscule observation?

So, any current astrophysical theory is not even a "first approximation", but "before zero approximation".

Nobody can measure gravity or optics at a galaxy scale distance, we just stare to sunsplashes on a ceiling.

[Scotius]

Eh, i'm not worried. At the time of the Universe's death we'll be long extinct. Or we create a young, artificial universe in a lab, and emigrate there long before our Universe croaks

[pxi]

Regarding copyright, my dear friends, worry not, for we (I) have broken no rules or law.

This comes under the classification of "fair use"... provided you acknowledge the author and the book/site you got it from... something I had forgotten to do.

You can use a story from a news site, but you breach copyright laws when you do not give credit OR claim its or own OR take the whole site and post it all under your own name...

This is so bloggers and news outlets can comment on sites or other things without falling foul of the law.

I really don't want to be that guy... but is this the kind of 'fair use' you're referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Copy-pasting the entirety of the text doesn't seem to be in keeping with the spirit of the definition of fair use.

From the wikipedia article:

1. Purpose and character of the use

The first factor is regarding whether the use in question helps fulfill the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public, or whether it aims to only "supersede the objects" of the original for reasons of personal profit. To justify the use as fair, one must demonstrate how it either advances knowledge or the progress of the arts through the addition of something new. A key consideration is the extent to which the use is interpreted as transformative, as opposed to merely derivative.

And

3. Amount and substantiality

The third factor assesses the quantity or percentage of the original copyrighted work that has been imported into the new work. In general, the less that is used in relation to the whole, ex: a few sentences of a text for a book review, the more likely that the sample will be considered fair use.

Seem to contradict your assertions. Can you point to a source that verifies your claims? These things often vary on a country-by-country basis too, so what you are saying might well be true. I find copyright somewhat confusing myself.

[J.Random]

the universe is currently generating about half the energy it was just two billion years ago

Erm. What? I think this part needs an author's definition of "universe" and description of how, exactly, it's "generating energy".

[PB666]

well...this was rather...depressing...

IKR, I was just pondering what I would do with my time in 75,000,000,000 years.

There is always the quantum instability of true vacuum space. Think about it, as the universe expands eventually intergalactic space cools, the remnant hydrogen condenses into stars and new galaxies, which then die themselves, leaving the universe dotted with quantum singularities and all the mass condenses into these leaving nothing (because no light exits)....perfect vacuum. Then boom.

- - - Updated - - -

On the bright side, if 2 billion years has reduced the total energy output of the universe by half, we just might have a solution to the Fermi Paradox.

Current evidence suggests that it took life about 3 billion years to even evolve it's way to us. If 3 billion years ago, the universe was more than twice as bright - meaning it was more than twice as hot, twice as much radiation, etc - and at that point life could evolve here on Earth, on the edge of the galaxy (so less radiation out here), the reason we aren't up to our kneecaps in aliens is because any alien sentients are just now evolving on the edges of their respective galaxies.

I suspect that the effect is more likely that close to the center of inflation there is much older life we will never be able to communicate with and psuedoboundary they have barely reached the stage that can produce rocky planets do to time dilation effects. Again we have to separate the two Universe definitions. One that is commonly used is the visible universe, which is a small fraction of a potentially limitless universe that may have properties we cannot see or will never be able to see.

Note that our solar system has already had its ups and downs. When the sun was born it produced a brief period of more intense sunlight, but then it declined and has been steadily rising. I think that the authors are trying to point out that galaxies are sort of fizzling out, the effect of merging galaxies and massive central black holes is ejecting gas into intergalactic space which is basically starving the galaxies of material for new star formation. As a consequence many galaxies are loaded with red-dwarfs and old stars in which the spectrum has shifted to red. But the gas that ended up in intergalactic space is in an equilibrium, because these x-ray jets are heating the gas which is keeping it moving, once gas stops being fed from other galaxies it will cool down and can condense to form new galaxies and other stars. This could go on for a while but it will eventually stop. Our milky way is enjoying a sort of happy life as a young vigorous adult, however once it merges with andromeda there will be a brief period of star formation but then all the gas will get sucked into and shot out of the central vertices leaving it rickety old man.

[rtxoff]

It's just a hypothesis so somehow i won't accept this opinion that all is meaningless and that someday all will went to oblivion. It takes away the last bit of sense in our already anyway meaningless lives. So no, the universe is not going to expand forever, at some point it will all contract together ending in another big bang and the creation of a new universe.

[cicatrix]

This reminded me of a short sci-fi story by Isaac Asimov:

The last question

[J.Random]

This thread needs this video.

[Mazon Del]

I've long been slowly writing out a story concerning a megalith space station far far in the future. At some point billions/trillions of years from now, the various species of the universe were able to prove that the universe was cyclical, and that they could survive till the next big bang and could even survive the shockwave itself. So they banded together and poured all their resources into building a monstrous space station a couple light years wide. Now it is untold eons later and whole sections of the station are in disrepair with a massive scramble going on to try and prep the shields because the surviving teched species think it's almost time.

[o Atomsk]

I'm confused by the word "dying". Could it be that energy production that happened 2 billion years ago was from huge stars with giant fusion capacity that lasted less than a couple billion years and that now the majority of stars that exist today are simple boring main-sequence stars like our sun which might burn hydrogen for 8 billion years or so?

For some reason, I feel dying is such a sentient being concept. It's more like "changing", possibly? Not that we have the reaches or technology to really expand on it yet.

[NFUN]

It's just a hypothesis so somehow i won't accept this opinion that all is meaningless and that someday all will went to oblivion. It takes away the last bit of sense in our already anyway meaningless lives. So no, the universe is not going to expand forever, at some point it will all contract together ending in another big bang and the creation of a new universe.

What? The hypothesis of eternal expansion has evidence behind it, and new evidence of dark energy suggests the expansion is accelerating and rather than stagnation and slow death, all of the Universe's matter will be ripped apart. Your statement is devoid of evidence, don't ignore science out of fear*. Hope for the best, but don't live in denial. I wish the Big Crunch would happen too, but data suggests that gravity isn't strong enough, and who knows if that would cause another Big Bang anyways?

*applies to such scenarios as AGW, toxicity of common chemicals, etc

- - - Updated - - -

I'm confused by the word "dying". Could it be that energy production that happened 2 billion years ago was from huge stars with giant fusion capacity that lasted less than a couple billion years and that now the majority of stars that exist today are simple boring main-sequence stars like our sun which might burn hydrogen for 8 billion years or so?

For some reason, I feel dying is such a sentient being concept. It's more like "changing", possibly? Not that we have the reaches or technology to really expand on it yet.

Entropy states that it will die in a way familiar to us. Even ignoring dark energy, the Universe is expanding and thus growing colder as energy gets more spread out. As matter is turned into energy via fusion, the Universe becomes emptier and eventually all of the stars will go out and the lifeless matter will decay. Every instant more energy becomes unusable and the cosmos become a little darker. When the last star has gone out and the great civilizations have fallen, the only hope for the Universe is a signal advertising Utopia.

[Camacha]

It's just a hypothesis so somehow i won't accept this opinion that all is meaningless and that someday all will went to oblivion. It takes away the last bit of sense in our already anyway meaningless lives. So no, the universe is not going to expand forever, at some point it will all contract together ending in another big bang and the creation of a new universe.

It is all meaningless. That is the beauty of it. It is the ultimate freedom. No matter what you do, how you live your life, what choices and mistakes you make, it will all end the same way. Nothing you do matters of will ever matter, therefore you are free to do anything and live life to its fullest.