Charting the Slow Death of Our Universe
The fact that our Universe is slowly fading has been known since the late 1990s. Now, an international team of astronomers studying more than 200,000 galaxies has measured the energy generated within a large portion of space more precisely than ever before, representing the most comprehensive assessment of the energy output of the nearby Universe. They confirm that the energy produced in the Universe today is only about half of what it was two billion years ago. They also find that this fading is occurring across all wavelengths from ultraviolet to the far infrared. Their conclusion -- The Universe is slowly dying.
Comments:
so since energy can't be destroyed only changed into mass, the reduced energy must mean that the universe is gaining mass which may be observed as gravity waves some day ?? 8)
<br>William:<br><br>You bring up a good point. Mass and Energy are interchangeable properties -- Mass can be converted into Energy, and Energy can be converted into Mass, as demonstrated in particle accelerators and in nuclear reactors.<br><br>Since the speed of light squared is an incredibly large number, the equation E = mc^2 implies that a small amount of Mass contains a lot of Energy. For reference, a 20,000 ton atomic bomb contains about 700 milligrams of Uranium -- less than one-third the mass of a US dime. And yet the amount of Energy released is significant.<br><br>Conversely, it takes a lot of Energy to create a small amount of mass.<br><br>So, my question is this -- As the Universe ages, if the Energy that is being lost is slowly being converted to Mass over these billions of years, is it even detectable?<br><br>My guess is probably not -- At least not today with the tools and methods we currently have available to us.<br><br>Thanks,<br><br>Guy<br><br><br><br><br><blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="italic"><i>william Riedhart said:</i><br><br>so since energy can't be destroyed only changed into mass, the reduced energy must mean that the universe is gaining mass which may be observed as gravity waves some day ?? 8) </div></blockquote>
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