Good News: the Universe May Not Be Dying

Reuters ^ | Fri February 20, 2004 | Maggie Fox

[demlosers]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cosmologists had a bit of good news on Friday -- they are just about twice as certain as they were before that the Universe is not going to be ripped apart.

But if we really want to know what will happen, the United States must continue to care for the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, or build a replacement soon, the researchers said.

The team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said they had found more evidence about a mysterious force called dark energy.

Discovered only six years ago, dark energy may make up 70 percent of the universe. It holds the key to the future of the universe, depending on how strong and how permanent it is.

Being Earthbound, the only way cosmologists can try to learn about it is through indirect observations. They use Hubble to look at the oldest, most distant supernovae they can find, and measure the light coming from them.

This light would have left the exploding stars billions of years ago and its color, known as red shift, tells astronomers about how fast they were accelerating at the time. This gives clues about the expansion of the universe and its age.

"In 1998 we first detected that the universe was accelerating and was apparently being driven to that state by this very mysterious dark energy that appears to make up 70 percent of the universe," the Institute's Adam Reiss told reporters. "That took us all by surprise. We don't really understand what it is."

NO MORE STARS IN THE SKY

One hope is that it is the explanation for Einstein's theoretical cosmological constant, a number that will predict whether the universe will collapse in a "big crunch," be completely blown apart in a "big rip" or just drift steadily until the galaxies are so far apart they cannot be seen -- in effect taking the stars from the sky.

"Right now we're about twice as confident than before that Einstein's cosmological constant is real, or at least dark energy does not appear to be changing fast enough (if at all) to cause an end to the universe anytime soon," Reiss added.

He and his colleagues will post a paper in the online version of the Astrophysical Journal explaining their findings.

"If Einstein was right and dark energy remains at the strength it is for all time, the Universe will expand forever," Reiss said. While this sounds more pleasant than a big crunch or a big rip, it also means a cold, dark and lonely future. Not that this will matter to humans, as it is an estimated 55 billion years off.

Still, it would be nice to know what is going to happen and the researchers have been dismayed to learn that with the space shuttle grounded, Hubble may be allowed to die.

It takes regular shuttle missions to maintain Hubble but after the shuttle Columbia broke up a year ago, killing the seven astronauts aboard, NASA has been forced to ground the other shuttles and rethink the program.

Reiss said the telescope, or a good replacement, is crucial for his team's work.

"We are pushing to very, very faint supernovae and we can't do this from the ground," he said. "I am hopeful that Hubble will last longer and I am hopeful we can continue to harvest these kind of data."

[Celtjew Libertarian]

It's just pining for the fjords.

[TADSLOS]

"Right now we're about twice as confident than before that Einstein's cosmological constant is real, or at least dark energy does not appear to be changing fast enough (if at all) to cause an end to the universe anytime soon,"

Whew, that is good news! I can take my property for sale down now.

[Mark Felton]

cool. Now I can invest in the 5-year CD's instead of the 6-month.

[RightWhale]

Save the Hubble, or the Universe will be shredded and we will know nothing about it.

[Cicero]

Good news for those of us who were planning to live another 10 billion years or so.

[Born in a Rage]

Any far out theories about the dark matter?

I think it's coming into the universe through wormholes....replacing other 'stuff' which has left here through black holes. No entropy allowed when universe swapping!

[Monty22]

Hubble is going to die because we never got a solid shuttle replacement going in the last decade. It's not really a policy decision anymore anyway.

Get a better launch fleet of manned vehicles, build a better Hubble, and then we'll be in business.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[LRS]

Time Message to Logopolis:

Thank you Monitor! Those CVEs calculations will do the trick well enough!

[DannyTN]

Of course the Cosmos isn't going to be ripped apart. It is going to melt rather loudly.

2 Peter 3:10 - But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

[woofer]

Not that this will matter to humans, as it is an estimated 55 billion years off.

Whew! That's a relief. One less thing to keep me awake at night.

[DannyTN]

"I think it's coming into the universe through wormholes....replacing other 'stuff' which has left here through black holes. "

Like my matching socks and ball point pens?

[LibWhacker]

. . . the Universe is not going to be ripped apart.

OMG, SAVE THE UNIVERSE!!!!

(And someone notify the 'Rats that we've found a new cause for them to rally behind and study with their favorite branch of junk science.)

[TheMightyQuinn]

Far out theories? How about this:

From the University of Washington Daily newspaper, a black student wrote about the discovery of dark matter, which he called "black matter". Through flimsy reasoning and nonexistent logic, he concluded that black people were the cause of the origin of the universe, and were greater than white people. But somehow whites still owed reparations.

Not being a scientist myself, i had to take his word for it.

[Hotdog]

Now you tell me!...I just spent all my lottery money!

[microgood]

Save my job or we will all die.

[alnitak]

I second your desire for a Hubble replacement (a larger optical scope, not just an IR-optimised one like JWST). However, you don't need a new manned vehicle to replace Hubble. It only has a 2.5m mirror, something that size will easily fit inside the payload shroud of an expendable rocket.

[longshadow]

Cosmological bump in the dark

[PatrickHenry]

"If Einstein was right and dark energy remains at the strength it is for all time, the Universe will expand forever," Reiss said. While this sounds more pleasant than a big crunch or a big rip, it also means a cold, dark and lonely future. Not that this will matter to humans, as it is an estimated 55 billion years off.

And right up to the end, notwithstanding 55 billion years of accumulated data, creationists will still be claiming there's no evidence for evolution.