Hubble Data Says Universe Is 14 Billion Years Old

no reason to be here writes "New data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the age of the universe is approximately 14 billion years old. Read this press release for more info."

Comments

Re:The Universe is dying

[Tablizer]

(* We'll probably be very dead before the universe is. As such: I don't care....
Of course, it could be argued that the matter of the universe will re-form into a big ball to start the cycle over again. I think there is some debate as to how likely that is. *)

The best current estimate is that the Universe will continue to expand, and that several billions of years from now, inhabitants of our galaxy will only be able to see and access the galaxies within our "local cluster" and a few others IIRC (roughly about 50 galaxies?). The rest beyond that will eventually recede faster than the speed of light, riding on the expansion, so they are "gone" as far as we are concerned. But the local ones are gravitational buddies to end.

50 galaxies is plenty to provide humans with enough energy for another 500 billion years or so (very rough guess).

Thus, if we survive Earth's end and spread around to the nearby galaxies, we still have a lot of time.

I just hope there is no intergalactic bomb that terrorists can use to wipe out the remaining galaxies. (Triggering a super-gamma burst by colliding black holes and super-stars may be a possible bomb.)

I think terrorists and wars are the biggest threat, not the expanding universe. If anything, the expansion allows groups of humans to part such that groups can "ride out" the expansion so no terrorists can catch them. Groups can disappear beyond the "event horizon" of the expansion and never be touched again by outsiders as long as the speed of light cannot be surpassed.

Thus, this limits the scope of people that big-time terrorists and wars can kill.

IOW, expansion may be your distant offspring's best friend.