Posted on 08/19/2010 3:49:20 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A "galactic lens" has revealed that the Universe will probably expand forever.
Astronomers used the way that light from distant stars was distorted by a huge galactic cluster known as Abell 1689 to work out the amount of dark energy in the cosmos.
Dark energy is a mysterious force that speeds up the expansion of the Universe.
Understanding the distribution of this force revealed that the likely fate of the Universe was to keep on expanding.
It will eventually become a cold, dead wasteland, researchers say.
The study, conducted by an international team led by Professor Eric Jullo of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, is published in the journal Science.
Dark energy makes up three-quarters of our Universe but is totally invisible. We only know it exists because of its effect on the expansion of the Universe.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
whew.
Cosmic Lens Used to Probe Dark Energy for First Time
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-272
August 19, 2010
PASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers have devised a new method for measuring perhaps the greatest puzzle of our universe — dark energy. This mysterious force, discovered in 1998, is pushing our universe apart at ever-increasing speeds.
For the first time, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were able to take advantage of a giant magnifying lens in space — a massive cluster of galaxies — to narrow in on the nature of dark energy. Their calculations, when combined with data from other methods, significantly increase the accuracy of dark energy measurements. This may eventually lead to an explanation of what the elusive phenomenon really is.
“We have to tackle the dark energy problem from all sides,” said Eric Jullo, an astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “It’s important to have several methods, and now we’ve got a new, very powerful one.” Jullo is lead author of a paper on the findings appearing in the Aug. 20 issue of the journal Science.
Scientists aren’t clear about what dark energy is, but they do know that it makes up a large chunk of our universe — about 72 percent. Another chunk, about 24 percent, is thought to be dark matter, also mysterious in nature but easier to study than dark energy because of its gravitational influence on matter that we can see. The rest of the universe, a mere four percent, is the stuff that makes up people, planets, stars and everything made up of atoms.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
T.S.Eliot
I know those lines only from the book “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute.
Really...and so did it get here?
Gregory Benford wrote a terrific article on the fate of the universe some years back, including the expansion, etc. Good writer.
Forever is a very long time. Oh, it is not time at all is it? It is "forever". What BS.
“Dark energy makes up three-quarters of our Universe but is totally invisible.”
Kind of like the Gulf deep water oil plume that is invisible to the naked eye, according to reports today from the EPA and “researchers”.
“I’m just sayin’”
correx:
HOW did it all get here....probably spawned from within a dark, empty wasteland, eh? No chemical processes, zero. nada.
Wondered how all this richness happened out of nothing.
Going back to nothing. Then, back to something. Except it wil never go to “nothing” since it has been always something. Nothing is something. God’s cycle. The giant battery of creation. We’re intrinsic light cells, energy cells. The construct of nothing is impossible. jmho.
Consciousness is a pesky and ephemeral thing, certainly hard to measure according to infinitesimal, dark matter standards.
Down worry, in a few weeks another group of boffins will find another astronomical feature and conclude that the Universe will collapse on itself in a few score billion years.
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Men
Shute was certainly a properly educated Englishman. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Shute ). Attribution to Elliot in the novel was unnecessary as both he and most of the novel's original readership knew these famous lines and their origin from their schooling.
Today, unfortunately, Elliot has been relegated to the literary ring of irrelevancy created for “dead white men” who are believed to have little of interest to say to modern readers.
And now, having learned that the Universe will end in cold, dead, lifelessness in say, 40 or 50 billion years, I'm totally bummed and I think I'll get drunk.
How absolutely empty and without hope some people’s lives must be!
“It will eventually become a cold, dead wasteland...”
Worse than that for those who die in their sin.
Seek out Jesus while there is still light! Repent of your sinse, call upon His name to save you! Believe that He died for you, shed His blood to wash away your sins, and then rose from the dead! Confess Him as your Lord and LIVE!
OK, off my soapbox now. I pray somebody reads that that was wondering what they must do to be saved....
Hmm, all fuzzy at the end ~
A "galactic lens" has revealed that the Universe will probably expand forever.Obviously what is needed is a new branch of science, "Binder Twine Theory".
Spoken into existence. And Eliot would concur.
Interesting. Though wait a week. It´ll change.
Yep. But it was from a poem by T.S Eliot called ‘The Hollow Men.’ A masterpiece.
So this explains the rampant paranoia of those who insist that "they are being watched"?
"You don't understand the power of the Dark Side..."
While we were there, Gumby ran his hypothesis regarding the missing dark mass/energy problem past the Professor...Gumby thinks the discrepancy is due to an incomplete knowledge of space itself, related to variability of the “Classic Vacuum”.
If Space is to Energy as Energy is to Mass, then he suspects the observations attributed to “dark matter/energy” can be explained by presuming a localized density of space - where spatial distortion is equivalent to E. “Dark matter/energy” existing where E is locally sufficient to manifest the weak gravitational force (observable as gravitational lensing) but insufficient to manifest the strong forces required for the creation of matter.
If this is the case, then mass would be variable in proportion to the density of its spatial context.
G=M+E
IOW: Total Relative Gravity = Newtonian Gravity + Spatial Energy Density.
The Idea so affected the professor that he was unable to respond.
Gumby said it was like talking to a statue...
{badumpump}
>>The Wasteland
SB: The Hollow Men.
What an interesting contextual slip between the... between the...
LOL.
Would you like to make a wager?
As far as ordinary matter is concerned, that could be true, but the vacuum is far from a dead wasteland. In fact it may be the substance from which new universes are made.
MM62: Would you like to make a wager?
Sure, as long as you allow me to define the terms "few", "boffins" and "conclude" ;)
A "galactic lens" has revealed that the Universe will probably expand forever. ... It will eventually become a cold, dead wasteland, researchers say.
Harrumph! These 'researchers just found this out?
"Heck', The Who' knew this aver 40 years ago.
Teenage WASTELAND (Baba O'Reily) (you Tube with lyrics 4:58)
"They're all wasted"
Between the full glass
and the empty bottleBetween the euphoriaand the return to homeostasis,falls the hangover.
Bump+1
But these same people say the entire universe was once nothing - and the big bang created everything from nothing... Explain that.
>>Explain that.
“Let there be light!”
Ah, I see!
I'll have to decline as I like flavor along with the buzz: dark Indian rum and coke; gin, Rose's lime cordial, and panni; or CC & 7. Cold but no ice, thanks.
As for the lines you quoted, which of his poems are they from? What is your interpretation of the last line's meaning?
Just got home from a hard day.
I’ve already written some commentary on that poem (as have a couple of thousand other people.) It’s The Waste Land, from the first section titled “Burial of the Dead.”
I’ll try to find the little bit I wrote, which was on those lines in particular, later tonight.
By the way, my mention of the drink was specifically because it leapt to mind when I read your comment “And now, having learned that the Universe will end in cold, dead, lifelessness...” Somehow the bland, flavorlessness of vodka with water seemed fitting.
So, several tens of billions of years hence, the whole universe will be kind of like Detroit?
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