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Study: the Universe Has Almost Stopped Making New Stars

SternisheFan sends this quote from Wired: "An international team of astronomers used three telescopes — the UK Infrared Telescope and the Subaru Telescope, both in Hawaii, and Chile's Very Large Telescope — to study trends in star formation, from the earliest days of the universe. Extrapolating their findings has revealed that half of all the stars that have ever existed were created between 9 and 11 billion years ago, with the other half created in the years since. That means the rate at which new stars are born has dropped off massively, to the extent that (if this trend continues) 95 percent of all the stars that this universe will ever see have already been born. Several studies have looked at specific time 'epochs', but the different methods used by each study has restricted the ability to compare their findings and discern a fuller model of how stars have evolved over the course of the entire universe's lifespan."

20 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. And... by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They stopped making new movies, about 2002.

    Now it's only remakes, re-boots, TV re-imaginings, and films based on children's toys.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:And... by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Tobacco is overrated, Colorado and Washington are where its at.

      --
      Good-bye
  2. Fermis paradox by fivethreeo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why we dont find any life out theere, the golden age of the universe might just be long passed. Might have been teeming at some point. Sorry no Star-Trek possible anymore.

    1. Re:Fermis paradox by Alamais · · Score: 4, Informative

      Er, no. Yes, it accumulates due to gravity, but it does not "set itself on fire due to acceleration": hydrogen fire (i.e. combustion) is a chemical reaction with oxygen (2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O). A 'star' is an accumulation of hydrogen until the pressure and heat due to self-gravitation are sufficient to allow sustained nuclear fusion to occur.

  3. Re:I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I blame Universal cooling.

  4. Fermi's Fallacy by oGMo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Fermi Paradox assumes quite a few things which may not be true, such as interstellar travel being practical or desirable, life and intelligence being similar to our own, the fact we could actually spot it with our current techology (or that it would desire to be seen), and that artifacts of past civilizations would actually last for the millions of years between said civilization and our own.

    We are barely able to start seeing extrasolar planets. The idea that "if it's out there, we would have seen it" seems a bit silly for any number of reasons. For instance, noticing, here on earth, the tiny blip in time a civilization that might use radio waves seems unlikely. People who subscribe to the technological singularity might assume that any civilization with high enough technology would be incomprehensible to us; think of us trying to tune into a radio show (or look for smoke signals) when they're using the internet. I think the article above lists a few more.

    Star Trek may well not be possible as you say; that doesn't mean something better isn't.

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

    1. Re:Fermi's Fallacy by marcosdumay · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The idea that "if it's out there, we would have seen it" seems a bit silly for any number of reasons.

      Yes, that idea is silly. The actual Fermi idea that "if there was life out there it would have colonized the entire galaxy already, and we wouldn't be here asking if there is life out there" holds a lot more of water.

    2. Re:Fermi's Fallacy by Graymalkin · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's also the fact that if we took the largest, most powerful radio telescope we have, put it on a planet orbiting our nearest star, pointed it directly at earth with the most powerful broadcast it could generate... by the time the signal got to us, there is no equipment on earth that could detect it.

      That's completely false. If you took Arecibo and stuck it in orbit around Alpha Centauri and beamed a signal back it would be fairly easy to detect with an Arecibo-class telescope provided we were looking. For a little more on the math read up. We could receive transmissions from dozens of light years away with existing telescopes and even further away with arrays and/or locations with better signal-to-noise ratios than available on planet (like the dark side of the Moon).

      --
      I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
  5. Getting off this rock is Hard Ecology by billstewart · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only ways to get off this rock are to understand ecologies well enough to be able to build a sustainable large-scale ecology with enough complexity to maintain human life, or to understand human minds well enough to upload ourselves into robots. To do the former, humans need to be Not Dead Yet, which means we have to be able to understand ecologies well enough not to poison ourselves before we've got a bunch of starships. So far, we haven't been able to build little model terrariums like Biosphere 2 without cheating, and we won't be able to build a colony on Mars (where you've got some resources to cheat with), much less outer space, until we can do one on Earth.

    So if you want to get off the planet, you've got to fix the planet first. Or, like, do the robot upload dance, and you're not getting me inside one of those things any time soon.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  6. I can't explain it but, by Slutticus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    for some reason this makes me incredibly sad.

  7. Reminds me of The Last Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question

  8. Local Group 112 of the Star Union is on strike by BLToday · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is what happens when God allowed the star makers to unionized. They get lazy and production drops.

    I'll be using this news to tell me wife why I'm just sitting on the couch and not doing house chores. I want minimize my contribution to the heat death of the universe.

  9. Of course it stopped. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do you know how much those things *cost* to build new. Jeez.

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  10. Re:I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    I prefer to think of it as "gaining helium (and heavier things)," but I guess you're one of those "star is half empty" kind of people?

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  11. Re:I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not really cooling, it's just spreading the same amount of energy over an increasingly large area. The sum total is still the same.

    There's a word for "spreading the same amount of energy over an increasingly large area": cooling. That's the normal way that cooling happens after all.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  12. Re:The starcreators are pissed.... by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

    You need to update your memes. The people lefties hate are called "Tea Partiers" now, not "neocons". Hasn't been "neocons" since 2010. Remember, it doens't matter what either group actually stood for, the point is to corrupt the language.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  13. We're running out.... by countach · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're running out of stars.... Get 'em while they're hot!

  14. Nonsensicle statistics by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Informative

    95 percent of all the stars that this universe will ever see have already been born

    And since, based on all the studies we've done, the universe is flat... and therefor infinite... 5% * infinity is what? Infinity. So perhaps star formation will be less dense going forward, but I believe back when it was a lot more active, the universe was probably a lot less hospitable to those of us that don't find gamma ray bursts good for our health.

    We now know that the universe is flat with only a 0.5% margin of error. This suggests that the Universe is infinite in extent; however, since the Universe has a finite age, we can only observe a finite volume of the Universe.

    Source: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html

  15. along those lines: Fade to Black... by Fubari · · Score: 4, Informative
    Fade to Black: The Night Sky of the Future is a slide show that considers the long term implications of cosmic expansion. Here's an excerpt from the introduction page.

    The night sky on Earth (assuming it survives) will change dramatically as our Milky Way galaxy merges with its neighbors and distant galaxies recede beyond view.
    The quickening expansion will eventually pull galaxies apart faster than light, causing them to drop out of view. This process eliminates reference points for measuring expansion and dilutes the distinctive products of the big bang to nothingness. In short, it erases all the signs that a big bang ever occurred.
    To our distant descendants, the universe will look like a small puddle of stars in an endless, changeless void.

  16. Re:No more stars? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Funny

    What, like X-Factor you mean

    No, he said a star making machine.

    .... like Hollywood ??

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