Science: Dark Future for the Universe

Society | August 15, 2003, Friday // 00:00

Astronomers have confirmed by a new method one of the saddest stories of the Universe - one day the stars in the sky will all stop twinkling.

As old stars die, new ones are born, but, for billions of years, the rate of star formation has been in decline. According to recent estimates, there are 10 times more stars in the visible Universe than all the grains of sand on every beach and desert in the world.

The good news is that they should last for a very long time yet. One day, however, the Universe will fade into darkness.

It has been known for many years that the rate of star formation is slowing.

This has been estimated by observing very distant galaxies. The light from these galaxies has taken thousands of millions of years to reach Earth, giving a picture of what they were like when they were very young.

Scientists looked at what they call the "fossil record" of the Universe - the star light from 40,000 nearby galaxies. Galaxies shine with the combined light of all the stars in them. Old stars tend to give out red light while youngsters glitter blue.

The astronomers analysed the spectrum of light using a new compression method to cope with the vast amount of information.

It confirms what we already knew - that star formation peaked around six billion years ago, when our own Sun came into being. Nevertheless, it gives a more accurate, if gloomy, prediction of what the Universe might be like in the distant future.

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