Galaxies are scattering 9 percent faster than previously thought.
The universe is expanding. This is known. It is not known why it is expanding faster than it should be. That is, one speed is obtained from the calculations, and the observations demonstrate another - increased.
The accelerated expansion of the Universe was "instrumentally" recorded by American astronomers from Johns Hopkins University, led by Adam Riess, a Nobel laureate who was awarded a prestigious prize in physics back in 2011, just proving that the Universe is expanding at an accelerated rate.
By observing the stars in the neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, with the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers have found that it is running away from us 9 percent faster than would be expected from theoretical assumptions. This was reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
It was believed that with an increase in the distance to any galaxy by a megaparsec - this is about 3.3 million light years - its escape velocity increases by 67 kilometers per second. But it turned out that it was 73 kilometers per second. Which corresponds to the very mysterious 9 percent increase, which, as scientists believe, will require some new physics to understand.
Astronomers have watched the stars receding from us in the Magellanic Cloud.
The observations on the basis of which the conclusions about the acceleration in the expansion of the Universe were made took place back in 2016. In 2018, they were confirmed by data obtained using the European space telescope "Gaia".
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The accelerated expansion of the Universe will lead to its Big Rip
The fact that galaxies are scattering faster and faster, scientists "blame" dark matter, then dark energy. They do not really know what they are, but they believe that the repulsive forces generated by these mysterious substances significantly exceed gravitational attraction.
Robert Caldwell from Dartmouth College and his colleagues from the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena) once figured out how the "scatter" could end. And they came to the conclusion that the Universe is expanding to the Big Rip, that is, it will burst. Together with all matter. True, not soon - in 22 billion years. But who knows, suddenly the current acceleration indicates that the denouement is approaching, pardon the pun, at an accelerated pace.
According to the theory of the Big Rip, 60 million years before the universal apocalypse, our galaxy - the Milky Way, will disintegrate, in 3 months - the planets of the Solar system will scatter in all directions, half an hour before the End of all Ends the Earth will turn into dust. And at the last moment atomic nuclei will decay. That is, everything that exists.
What will happen after? Maybe nothing more and never. But it is possible that the decayed matter will suddenly gather again into some incredibly dense point - the singularity, and explode with a new Big Bang. Like the last time - about 14 billion years ago, after which the Universe itself began to expand.
It's going to the Big Rip - the End of All Ends.
When all the stars go out
The astrophysicists working on the GAMA (Galaxy and Mass Assembly) project, in which they analyze the radiation of stars and star clusters in different frequency ranges, from ultraviolet to infrared, have let go of the current Universe much more time. Scientists have examined 220 thousand galaxies. Appreciated their radiation. And they found that it was dying out. The collected data was voiced by the head of the study, Professor Simon Driver from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, speaking at the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly in Honolulu, which took place in 2015. The conclusion is shocking: our universe is dying.
Let me remind you once again that according to the currently accepted theory, the Universe came about as a result of the Big Bang. Then I received all my energy. Then I spent it in accordance with Einstein's formula: E = MC squared. And now the reserves seem to be depleted. Over the past 2.3 billion years, the intensity of radiation from stars has decreased by as much as half. At least hundreds of thousands of galaxies surveyed have shown just such a trend in all ranges.
Fading cannot last indefinitely. Someday there will be no energy left at all. And the universe will die. That is, if you believe the professor and his colleagues in the GAMA project, then it is not eternal. But the complete End seems to be still very far away. The scientist's calculations show: all stars will go out in 100 trillion years (10 to the 13th power). It will take 10 to the 16th power years and black holes will absorb all matter. And they themselves will disappear after 10 to the 99th power. And this is almost an eternity.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY