- 2086
- Extremes in our Universe are the boundary
conditions we can either observe or theorize.
Here are some of the fastest, the coldest, the rarest, the densest,
extremes we can find. Enjoy life while you have it. The far distant future does not look so
bright.
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----------------------------- 2086 - Puzzles in Astronomy
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Astronomers have a challenging job.
So many problems to solve. And,
these are BIG problems. We know the
Universe is BIG. It has been expanding
for 13.7 billion years. That is how old
the Universe is. But, the visible
Universe that we can see is constrained by the speed of light.
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- During
the 13.7 billion years from the beginning the light we see has traveled nearly
that many light years. What we can see
is in the past and over that time it takes the light to get to us the Universe
has expanded even further. Calculating
the rate of expansion which is accelerating the visible Universe has moved
beyond what we see to a radius of 42 billion lightyears, 84 million lightyears diameter
if we count in both directions.
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- I
know, it is hard to wrap your mind around this.
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It is likely that there is an even greater Universe beyond this “
visible Universe”. The “ visible
Universe is not all visible yet because all the light has not had enough time
to reach us yet. This part of the
Universe is 84 billion lightyears in diameter. The other parts have expanded so
much their light will never reach us.
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- To explain the homogeneity and the geometric
flatness of the Universe astronomers believe that soon after the Big Bang the
Universe experienced Cosmic Inflation that expanded the Universe faster than
the speed of light. It was space itself expanding
rather than the matter in the space moving that fast. The light in this part of the Universe is the
light that will never reach us. It is
too far away and accelerating too fast.
But, that still means there is much more of the Universe out there.
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Now, to make the Universe even more challenging within the Universe that
we can see there exists 95% of matter and energy that we can’t see. It is called Dark Matter and Dark
Energy. This mass-energy effects gravity
but it does not interact with electromagnetic energy. It cannot be detected with light or any other
electromagnetic radiation. We know it is
there because of the gravity effects on matter that we can see.
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Spinning galaxies could not remain intact if there were not unseen matter
providing 10 times more gravity that is needed to hold things together. 10 times more mass than we can see and detect
with any other means.
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Light passing past a large Dark Matter mass is bent with gravitational
lensing. We can see these effects on images
that are in the background of the Dark Matter mass. Again calculations tell us that there is 10
times more matter causing this that we can detect, other than by gravity.
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The Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. There must be some form of Dark Energy in the
vacuum of space that opposes gravity and causes the expansion to accelerate. Astronomers can use E = mc^2 to calculate the
amount of mass and energy in the Universe.
Their calculations are that 72.1% is Dark Energy and 23.3% is Dark
Matter. The remainder 4.6% is
“everything” we can see and detect. 95%
is “ Dark” and called dark because it is a puzzle that has yet to be solved.
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Another puzzle is the Big Bang itself.
Supposedly, it really came out of “ nothing”. If it was truly created out of nothing than
there must have been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter that put back
together would equal nothing. There must
have been equal amounts of positive and negative charges, protons and
electrons. There must have been an
equal number of north and south magnetic poles to cancel out all magnetic
energy. It all must add up to
nothing. Was there nothing there before
the Big Bang exploded with space and time expanding from the beginning? Are there other Universes out there
experiencing the same thing?
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Somehow the Universe we know exists with matter outnumbering
anti-matter. For every billion
anti-matter particles there would have to have been 1 billion plus one matter
particle. That is the only way we can
explain how we got here. Everything is made of those one-matter- particles.
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We also must assume that all the laws of nature are the same everywhere
in the Universe. Not only the same but
without the slightest change from what we experience or life could not
exist. Not only must the laws of nature
be friendly to life these laws must exist for billions of years, the time it
takes for life to evolve.
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We have evidence that the first galaxies formed less than 500 million
years after the Big Bang. Galaxies
formed from small density fluctuations in the hot primordial gas that formed out of the plasma as it
expanded and cooled. Slightly higher
densities provided the gravity needed to make denser regions that eventually
coalesced into stars and galaxies. Dark
Matter had to be present as part of the calculations that predict the Universe
we see today.
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After the puzzle as to how it all began there is the puzzle as to how it
will all end. The Universe is expanding
at an ever faster rate. The distances
between galaxies is becoming greater and greater. Eventually the distances will be so great
their light will never have time to reach us.
We will only see the stars that are gravitationally connected to
us. And, those stars will be running out
of fuel and will extinguish. The
rarefied vacuum of space will contain only blackholes and dead stars.
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- Blackholes
have an Event Horizon that separates the hole from the surrounding
Universe. Anything inside the Event
Horizon disappears from the Universe for good.
Blackholes themselves are a dark universe. In the end they will exist in a totally dark
Universe expanding into infinity.
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Enjoy life while you have it. The
far distant future does not look so bright.
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An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned
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------------------------- Monday, April 30, 2018
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