The universe 'will expand forever', new Nasa study on 'dark energy' concludes

The universe will continue to expand forever, Nasa scientists concluded in a new study that sheds light on one of the greatest astronomical puzzles, “dark energy”.

By Andrew Hough
Published: 11:45PM BST 19 Aug 2010

51 Comments


https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2010/08/639.jpg The massive gravitational force of the dark matter (shown in blue) in giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689 bends the light from distant background galaxies, giving astronomers clues to the nature of dark energy. Photo: NASA/ JPL


Space agency researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope to “narrow in” on what they believe comprises the energy, which pushes our universe apart at ever-increasing speed.

Discovered it in 1998, astronomers have been unable to say what the mysterious force is, except that it is invisible and makes up a “large chunk of our universe”, or 72 per cent of its size.



Almost a quarter, 24 per cent, is thought to be "dark matter", which is also mysterious but easier to study than dark energy because of its “gravitational influence”.
The rest of the universe, a mere four per cent, is made of “the stuff that makes up people, planets, stars and everything made up of atoms”.
By using the huge “galactic magnifying lens” the international team of scientists, led byNasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, concluded the distribution of dark energy would mean the universe would never stop growing.
The study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, also found it would eventually become a dead and cold wasteland.
The scientists used Hubble and European Space Observatory's Very Large Telescope to observe how light from distant stars became distorted around a nearby cluster of galaxies called Abell 1689.
The galaxies, found in the constellation of Virgo, is one of the biggest galactic clusters known to science.
Due to its huge mass, scientists say it “acts as a cosmic magnifying glass”, causing light to bend around it.
"We have to tackle the dark energy problem from all sides," said Prof Eric Jullo, a JPL scientist who led the international study.
"It's important to have several methods, and now we've got a new, very powerful one.
"What I like about our new method is that it's very visual. You can literally see gravitation and dark energy bend the images of the background galaxies into arcs.”
He said the study’s conclusion meant scientists could say for the first time that the expansion of the universe “will continue to accelerate and the universe will expand forever”.
Priya Natarajan, a cosmologist at Yale University, who was part of the team, added: “We can now apply our technique to other gravitational lenses.

The universe 'will expand forever', new Nasa study on 'dark energy' concludes - Telegraph

Where does all the light and matter go that is sucked into black holes?

Going back to the famous Einstein quote, does this also mean that human stupidity will keep expanding forever. Sure seems that way sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Bangyai

The universe will continue to expand forever,

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Excellent.

Nice to hear some good news for a change.

I wonder if there is any "dark matter" in the "gray matter" between our ears....perhaps we have an internal gravitational lens and that bends our balance mechanism and makes us fall over when we drink to much.......Ive always been looking for an answer like this.....WOW! now I can explain that to my misses!

:smileylaughing::aus:

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Originally Posted by Bangyai

will expand forever

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into what ? :confused:

nothing last forever, not even the Universe

You Chaps, can't be serious......everyone knows, it's all about black holes in black holes.....

Proved irrefutably, by intellects par exsalonce on ....teakdoor...

.....for those ''serious about science''....

The memorable quote........:mid:

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Originally Posted by Mid

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bangyai

will expand forever

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into what ? :confused:

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Nothing.

It's really quite simple. :)

What is 'forever'?

If we don't understand the beginning how can we understand the end? And if we continue to see things as only having a start and finish then we will never see the truth. Quote; Jeremia after 2 bottles of wine..

It bugs me when scientists do this, or maybe it was just shoddy reporting.

Forever and infinite are synonymous, they are one and the same.

We are told that the universe in infinite, having no end. Yet we are also told that the universe is expanding, meaning that for it to be growing it must surely be finite. Or is it possible that something that is infinite is becoming 'more' infinite.

So, does forever mean for all eternity or can forever have an upper limit as infinity does, or may do. So if forever can have an upper limit, then is it really forever.

My brian hurts.

One problem is that theories can be weaved to support almost anything. One fact we know, is that the universe is expanding, so it continues expanding forever or will slow down, stop, and start contracting. Or, it could slow down and stop and stay like that forever.

Last year it was ever expanding and contracting. This means either that ours is not the first universe, or it's the first of what will be an infinite number of universes.

That's difficult enough to cope with. It also gives no guarantee that all universes expand the same way or distance before contracting, but a wild guess is good enough. The bit I like is an outer limit, because simply removing an infinite nothingness from the equation makes it somehow seem less daunting.

If the universe is only expanding, it means as TMCool says, it's expanding into nothing, in all directions at the same time, so there must be infinite space beyond it's borders to accommodate the expansion. Where does the universe end and nothingness begin?

I prefer the spring theory of expansion/contraction, if only because it removes the concept of infinite nothingness beyond the outer limits of the universe. And let's not forget the nothingness has to contract (against what??) and must also be in sync with the speed of the expanding universe, so that the borders (roughly, to the nearest few million light years) move together.

Pass!

That also leads to.....

What is nothing? How can we define nothing?

A vacuum isn't nothing, it has a name and is a recognisable entity. A vacuum isn't nothing, it is something. Just a something that is empty.

Before the big bang there was nothing, not even time. How is that possible? If there was no time then how could there have been a 'before'? So if there was no before the big bang then.....

I'm going to play football manager now.

Let me put it in a nutshell for you.
The black stuff with the pretty lights in the sky you see at night is getting bigger with even more pretty lights every night.
Case solved.

I prefer Firesign Theatre's explanation: Everything You Know is Wrong.:)

infinity......and beyond.




oxymoron



oxygen




moron






infinity







no end.












g'night.

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Originally Posted by Humbert

Where does all the light and matter go that is sucked into black holes?

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Are you stupid or what Humbert?
I watched "Aliens" and some bloke explained it.
Basically think of a sheet of A4 paper laying flat on a table. The distance of the most Northern point to the most Southern point of the sheet of paper can be measured in a straight linear movement, but imagine if you picked the paper up and folded it in half? The two points of North and South meet each other, so therefore distance and time is irreleveant. This basically means that all light and matter is sucked to where it was before,where it is going to be or where it is now because time and space doesn't matter due to the "paper folding" bit.
Man. Watch some Star-Trek or Deep Space 9 to educate yourself!:mid:

^Just kidding about the "stupid" bit by the way Humbert.

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Originally Posted by Bogon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Humbert

Where does all the light and matter go that is sucked into black holes?

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Are you stupid or what Humbert?
I watched "Aliens" and some bloke explained it.
Basically think of a sheet of A4 paper laying flat on a table. The distance of the most Northern point to the most Southern point of the sheet of paper can be measured in a straight linear movement, but imagine if you picked the paper up and folded it in half? The two points of North and South meet each other, so therefore distance and time is irreleveant. This basically means that all light and matter is sucked to where it was before,where it is going to be or where it is now because time and space doesn't matter due to the "paper folding" bit.
Man. Watch some Star-Trek or Deep Space 9 to educate yourself!:mid:

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Bloody brilliant explanation and I think you for that... I think?

My brain still hurts!

any statement including the words

forever

and

infinity / infinite

are essentially flawed and meaningless.

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Originally Posted by jandajoy

any statement including the words

forever

and

infinity / infinite

are essentially flawed and meaningless.

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Consumptive, perhaps?

I'm trying the piece of paper test right now...I have a question?

Do you have to fold it in half or can you just bend it?

Does it have to be A4 size or will A5 be ok?

And which episode of Star Treck explins this clearly?

My brains really huting now......

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Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Consumptive, perhaps?

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Don't see how.

^^Bending the paper will work as long as the opposite ends meet.
Doesn't really matter what size the paper is because once folded A will always be the the same distance from B.
It's a bit subliminal in Star-Trek so you will have to sift through all episodes (including the "New Generation" and the "Deep Space 9" crap).
If you have trouble getting your head around it try downing 5 large Leos and it will all become clear.

Thanks for that I think I've got it now, but when I fold it there is no distance from A to B because they're touching.

I'll keep trying it until I understand...bloody interesting experiment though!

^It's the bloody touching bit that makes space and time irrelevent!
You can measure a flat piece of paper from A to B but once folded A meets B thus it equates to this.
A+B=Enough already!:)

https://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...erlstrhan2.jpg


How about a 3 dimension Mobius curve?

If you follow the surface round,you eventually arrive back on the opposite side of the
glass .The inside becomes the out side. It's called the Klein bottle. The universe is like this.It keeps expanding,but actually ends up back in the middle and starts again.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
If you understand this,take two tablets and go to bed NOW.:chitown:

Looks like a complicated glass jug to me, I think the more sofisticated amongst us may describe it as a wine Carraffe that doesn't pour well?

I don't understand the Universe and I'm still gonna take two tablets and go to bed!

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Originally Posted by crippen

How about a 3 dimension Mobius curve? If you follow the surface round,you eventually arrive back on the opposite side of the glass .The inside becomes the out side. It's called the Klein bottle. The universe is like this.It keeps expanding,but actually ends up back in the middle and starts again.

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See a flaw here.............
If I followed the surface around the jug I would end up where I started and not on the opposite side (360 degrees).
Simple maths really. The radius is from the centre to the furthest point of a circle thus the diameter is twice the size of the given radius.
The outside would still be the outside and nothing would change except time.
If the jug was rotating and I followed the same rotation pattern at half the speed then I would be at the opposite end of the jug.
If I done the same experiment using the same rotation speed equaled with a linear movement on a spherical object then I would be travelling inside the object and not just cirumnavigating the object.
Try using the jug method with a pice of paper under it and then you get the two tablets and bed result!

Yep, I see it too its an air bubble on the left hand side.

I gave the tablets a miss and I'm on my 8th bottle of Chang, suddenly thing's seem so much clearer now!

Most people seem to have a fairly earthly view of what "space" is as big vacuum with lots of things scattered among it. Or, to put it another way "space is the space between the things in the Universe.

I see it differently, with "real space" and the "universe" being two different things.
The size of the universe can only be measured by the objects in it. The furthest objects being at the edge of the known universe. Even the spaces between objects in our universe are filled with all kinds of EM radiation, eg: light, Gama rays, x rays etc.. So its not really space. Its actually pretty full up with matter and EM radiation. But if our universe does in fact have a limit where matter and EM radiation expanding from the big bang hasnt yet reached, -- well, then whats outside that limit? The answer is simple really, -- its the "real nothingness" that we commonly and mistakenly call "space".

Consider where we are sitting right now in the universe as a distance from the starting point when the big bang occurred. Right after the the big bang there was nothing here. No matter or even EM radiation. It was just a big empty void. It was outside the "universe" as we like to think of things. Now its chock a block full of stuff whizzing around.

Outside the "universe" and into the big nothingness there are no outer boundaries, simply because you cant measure "nothing". The "nothingness" doesnt have to have a beginning or an end. It just isn't there in the first place to be measured or quantified until some matter or EM radiation expands into that empty void. And of course there is no "time" in the "nothingness" as there is nothing there to change.

We humans have a hard time getting our head around this concept as everything we know of has a beginning and an end, and can be measured. Even the term "space" is confused with "nothingness" .

Pretty simple really.

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Originally Posted by Bogon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Humbert

Where does all the light and matter go that is sucked into black holes?

---

Are you stupid or what Humbert?
I watched "Aliens" and some bloke explained it.
Basically think of a sheet of A4 paper laying flat on a table. The distance of the most Northern point to the most Southern point of the sheet of paper can be measured in a straight linear movement, but imagine if you picked the paper up and folded it in half? The two points of North and South meet each other, so therefore distance and time is irreleveant. This basically means that all light and matter is sucked to where it was before,where it is going to be or where it is now because time and space doesn't matter due to the "paper folding" bit.
Man. Watch some Star-Trek or Deep Space 9 to educate yourself!:mid:

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We'll that's what I thought all along. :)

Einstein postulated the theory of curved space where if you travel in a straight line you end up back where you started from. That makes space like a big egg encapsulated and autonomous from whatever it is outside its shell boundary. Maybe that is true and "space" really is curved due to the effect matter occupying it has on the the matrix we call "space". But whats outside the egg shell out there in the big nothingness?

I was going to post my explanation of all this, but the missus is calling me to bed. Some things are more important.
Besides this place is going to blow-up in 4 billion years, so what matters.

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Originally Posted by noelbino

but the missus is calling me to bed.

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The big bang theory explained in a nut shell.

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Originally Posted by Panda

But whats outside the egg shell out there in the big nothingness?

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An extremely large chicken? :)

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Einstein postulated the theory of curved space where if you travel in a straight line you end up back where you started from. That makes space like a big egg encapsulated and autonomous from whatever it is outside its shell boundary. Maybe that is true and "space" really is curved due to the effect matter occupying it has on the the matrix we call "space".

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Yes, learn how to bend space/time, learn how to travel to any where in the universe instantly.

Would be a nifty party trick.

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Originally Posted by Panda

Einstein postulated the theory of curved space where if you travel in a straight line you end up back where you started from.

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Yes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Panda

That makes space like a big egg encapsulated and autonomous from whatever it is outside its shell boundary.

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You don't need an outside in that theory. There is none for the 3(+1, the time)-dimensional universe.

So no giant chicken. Not even a giant chick.:(

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You don't need an outside in that theory.

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Has to be something there, 3-dimensional time/space cannot be filling a place that does not exist.

Hard to visualise but most theories have it that there is no outside, the dimensions just wrap round creating the ballon shaped universe. The higher dimensions that string theory etc require are very weak and the wrap round in an unmanageably small space and that is why they are not perceived.

On the other hand there are other theories that suggest that, we are inside a back hole and that other universes exist in black holes within our universe. That our universe is a 3 dimensional shadow within a higher dimensional universe and other equally strange ideas. these do have stuff on the outside