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How long will star formation endure before the eventual heat death of



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 28th 17, 06:47 PM posted to sci.astro.research
Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)[_2_]
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Posts: 273
Default How long will star formation endure before the eventual heat death of

In article ,
James Goetz writes:

Lord Kelvin's prediction of heat death indicates the eventual end
to star formation in the observable universe.

Have any astrophysicists made any predictions for the endurance of
star formation in the observable universe?

Or does anybody here want to take a crack at predicting it?

[[Mod. note --
1. This is really an astronomy question rather than a general physics
question, so I have set the Followup-To header to point to our
sister newsgroup sci.astro.research .
2. As to answering your question: Trying to understand/model the star
formation rate of the universe has been a major research area for
decades (e.g., try the search term "star formation history of the universe"
in google scholar or the ADS). But most of this focuses on the *past*
star formation rate. I'm sure there are studies trying to forecast
this into the future, but I don't have references handy.
-- jt]]


Star formation is heavily influenced by galaxy interactions. Thus, one
would at least need to run galaxy-evolution simulations into the future,
but no-one does this. One reason is that one can't check the
simulations by comparing to observations. The other is that with time
matter become more and more clumped, so more dynamic range is needed for
realistic simulations. (I had never seen this discussed in the
literature, but a few years ago I asked some of the main players in the
field why this is the case.)
  #2  
Old March 28th 17, 09:17 PM posted to sci.astro.research
Steve Willner
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Posts: 1,172
Default How long will star formation endure before the eventual heat death of

Have any astrophysicists made any predictions for the endurance of
star formation in the observable universe?


Fred Adams seems to have written a book chapter on the universe's
long-term futu
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012coup.book...71A

--
Help keep our newsgroup healthy; please don't feed the trolls.
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
  #3  
Old March 29th 17, 04:55 PM posted to sci.astro.research
Martin Brown[_3_]
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Posts: 189
Default How long will star formation endure before the eventual heat

On 28/03/2017 18:47, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
In article ,
James Goetz writes:

Lord Kelvin's prediction of heat death indicates the eventual end
to star formation in the observable universe.


Although he was at the time largely basing his model on the sun burning
coal in an attempt to debunk Darwin and the long geological timescales
needed for evolution to run its course.

Have any astrophysicists made any predictions for the endurance of
star formation in the observable universe?

Or does anybody here want to take a crack at predicting it?


John Baez has a nice page that summarises the demise of the universe
which I think is more or less up to date. Ballpark of 10^14 years for
normal star formation processes to have essentially run out of steam
give or take an order of magnitude or two.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/end.html

Total evaporation of galaxies feels intuitively wrong to me, but I am
sure he really knows what he is talking about. So can someone please
explain why when a star is flung out at above escape velocity the
remaining stars do not become ever more tightly bound a la globular
clusters until eventually core collapse of the remaining ones occurs?
(or can the last tight bound pair always fling out a third component)

And quite a nice graphic scaled in log(log(t)) to fit everything on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphi..._to_Heat_Death


[[Mod. note --
1. This is really an astronomy question rather than a general physics
question, so I have set the Followup-To header to point to our
sister newsgroup sci.astro.research .
2. As to answering your question: Trying to understand/model the star
formation rate of the universe has been a major research area for
decades (e.g., try the search term "star formation history of the universe"
in google scholar or the ADS). But most of this focuses on the *past*
star formation rate. I'm sure there are studies trying to forecast
this into the future, but I don't have references handy.
-- jt]]


Star formation is heavily influenced by galaxy interactions. Thus, one
would at least need to run galaxy-evolution simulations into the future,
but no-one does this. One reason is that one can't check the
simulations by comparing to observations. The other is that with time
matter become more and more clumped, so more dynamic range is needed for
realistic simulations. (I had never seen this discussed in the
literature, but a few years ago I asked some of the main players in the
field why this is the case.)


Galaxy galaxy collisions and supernova shockwaves are very helpful to
star formation but massive stars are short lived so eventually it is all
the dim barely lit stars, white dwarfs and neutron stars that will
predominate as long term survivors into the later degenerate era.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
  #4  
Old March 31st 17, 12:25 AM posted to sci.astro.research
jacobnavia
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Posts: 105
Default How long will star formation endure before the eventual heat

Le 28/03/2017 =E0 19:47, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) a =E9crit :
2. As to answering your question: Trying to understand/model the star
formation rate of the universe has been a major research area for
decades (e.g., try the search term "star formation history of the uni=

verse"
in google scholar or the ADS). But most of this focuses on the *past=

*
star formation rate. I'm sure there are studies trying to forecast
this into the future, but I don't have references handy.
-- jt]]


Yes, the past is easier to read than the future.

The future of the Universe?

I do not see any data that we could gather that could answer that
question. Even trying to figure out the observable universe is hard to
do for the future.

With most theories in a state of flux, dark matter, dark energy... we
are in the dark and there is no scientific answer to that question now.

Scientists shouldn't be afraid of saying "I do not know" when that is
the case. And the future of the universe, the origin of life and man,
are till now unanswered questions.

Nobody knows.

Can research about the future of the observable universe be done now?

Yes, we can extrapolate "some day the energy will be used up and will
provoke the lights going out". The thermical death of thermodynamics, we
are doomed. This has been proposed (in diverse forms) since ages. And
all those speculations are correct within the frames of their respective
theories, that get soon obsolete, as knowledge advances.

[[Mod. note -- I think the author's last sentence is quite similar to
a classic logical fallacy, conflating different "amounts of wrongness".
The late Isaac Asimov wrote a far better explanation of, and rejoinder
to, this fallacy than anything I could write, and I think his essay is
very relevant he

Isaac Asimov
"The Relativity of Wrong"
The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScien...ityofWrong.htm

-- jt]]
  #5  
Old April 2nd 17, 12:46 AM posted to sci.astro.research
jacobnavia
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 105
Default How long will star formation endure before the eventual heat

Le 31/03/2017 =E0 01:25, jacobnavia a =E9crit :
[[Mod. note -- I think the author's last sentence is quite similar to
a classic logical fallacy, conflating different "amounts of wrongness".
The late Isaac Asimov wrote a far better explanation of, and rejoinder
to, this fallacy than anything I could write, and I think his essay is
very relevant he

Isaac Asimov
"The Relativity of Wrong"
The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pp. 35-44
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScien...vityofWrong.ht


From that text:

quote
The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and
"wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and
completely right is totally and equally wrong.
end quote

Kepler's laws are confirmed by stars moving around the central black
hole of the galaxy. Ellipses, as he proposed.Those laws are based on
observations that astronomers have done.

The fate of the observable Universe in X trillion years?

What observations can you present, that would authorize some human to
postulate anything about that?

This is ridiculous, with space telescopes only 25 years old, and with a
species that has never got further than its small satelite at 300 000 Km.

I just said:

Scientists shouldn't be afraid of saying

I don't know

when that is the case: they haven't any observational data to establish
any theories about the subject matter.

That would stop all kinds of futile speculations without any data.
 




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