Posted on 03/20/2002 6:47:11 AM PST by dead
Wave goodbye to the universe. The expansion of the universe, which began about 15 billon years ago with the Big Bang, is mysteriously getting faster, Australian and British astronomers say.
However, they admitted yesterday they did not have a clue what "dark energy" was driving the galaxies to defy gravity and fly apart with ever increasing speed.
"We don't understand the physical process," said Matthew Colless, of the Australian National University.
But, "eventually the universe will accelerate so rapidly the more distant galaxies we can see today will move away faster than the speed of light and will disappear over the horizon."
Expansion faster than light is possible because, not only are galaxies flying apart at extraordinary speeds, but space itself is expanding, carrying the galaxies away with it.
Until 1998 astrophysicists were debating whether gravity was slowing the expansion enough to eventually cause the universe to collapse in a Big Crunch.
That year other astronomers, including Brian Schmidt, of the ANU's Mount Stromlo Observatory, near Canberra, produced the first solid evidence that the expansion was accelerating.
Studying exploding stars, they found that the more distant ones were fainter - and thus further - than seemed possible. They concluded an accelerating universe was to blame.
"It was a huge surprise," Dr Schmidt recalled yesterday. "I was rather scared to go out and tell people. I thought they'd laugh me off the planet."
Dr Colless, one of the first he told, was "shaking his head".
The new project, involving the ANU, the University of NSW, the Anglo-Australian Observatory near Coonabarabran, and British scientists, led by Cambridge Professor George Efstathiou, used a different method to reach the same finding.
They spent five years mapping the position and speed of 220,000 galaxies. They then compared the data with microwave radio charts of other scientists to "map" the universe as it was 150,000 years after the Big Bang - before the first galaxies even lit up. They found that only an accelerating universe would have allowed it to grow to today's size.
"Now we have two independent pieces of evidence that both give exactly the same answer," Dr Colless said. "I didn't believe Brian at first ... you have to rearrange the mental furniture."
While most galaxies would vanish from view, the Milky Way, and its nearest neighbours, glued together by gravity, would travel on alone. Dr Schmidt said the confirmation was "great news for me. I can sleep a little better. It's evidence we didn't screw up four years ago."
This is where it gets interesting. It has no center..for the same reason that the surface of a balloon has no center. There's nothing on the inside or the outside of the balloon, so you could say that the universe looks like the surface of a balloon, but not the whole balloon.
Bob Hope? Milton Berle?
The curvature of the universe is unchanged by the energy transformations.
BTW, I've been bit by that one myself on a different question. Physicist had to slap me awake.
But don't forget: in the Star Trek universe, they are not travelling at or around the speed of light. They are travelling at speeds considerably greater than the speed of light. This is why they're able to get to Alpha Centauri in a couple of days instead of five years.
Wouldn't objects receding at greater than light speed be perceived as black holes with infinite mass?
There are no less than 10 references to God, the Creator, "stretching out the heavens" in the Bible. Not calling the universe a baloon, but a curtain. Try that on for size.
Here's another way to look at it: Who says it started with a big bang? If you believe in creation, scripture will send you toward the very young earth and universe, created by the hand of God in 6 days. I know, I know - everything is billions of years old...
Maybe not. What was the last movie you saw? Movies are a little universe all their own, aren't they? So are books. Did the main character start at birth? Probably not. Even if he/she did, what about the character's parents?
What about a painting? You have a picture by the artist, frozen in time. What happened before?
There is nothing before the movie or book starts, and there is nothing before the painting was painted. The characters and objects leap into existence, fully formed by the hand of the author/screenwriter/artist.
I respect those who understand all the relativity stuff, but, as a Christian, I have to weigh these things with what I believe.
Why should there be a what into which to expand? You will probably get a kick out of some new lab experiments involving measuring the 5th dimension, now being designed and performed at Princeton [and many other research centers are scrambling their own projects.] Accepting the 5th dimension shouldn't be difficult for those who have accepted dimensions 1, 2, and 3, not to mention accepting time as the 4th dimension.
If by galactic cluster you mean the Milky Way and several other galaxies not too far away, such as M31, Andromeda Galaxy, visible near the Great Square of Pegasus for those regions of earth not yet terminally light-polluted, then that is probably true.
Did so.
Very interesting nonetheless. What is the energy source that is fueling the acceleration? Cosmic winds? And if we are to beleive Einstein wouldn't that energy source fail before light speed velocity is reached?
EBUCK
Sort of. Black holes act gravitationally-speaking just like an ordinary body of the same mass if you are outside the critical radius. If there were a black hole in place of the sun, and if that black hole had the same mass as the sun, earth and the other planets would continue orbiting just as they do now. In the dark.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.