THE HOMOCENTRIC UNIVERSE

Twilight of the universe (Roger Highfield, 08/08/2003, DAaily Telegraph)

The future of the universe is dim - astronomers say it is fading into darkness after studying 40,000 galaxies in the neighbourhood of the Milky Way. [...]

There have not been enough new stars turning on to replace all the old stars that die and switch off, says the study by Ben Panter and Prof Alan Heavens from Edinburgh University's Institute for Astronomy, and Prof Raul Jimenez of the University of Pennsylvania. [...]

"The age of star formation is drawing to a close," said Prof Heavens. "The number of new stars being formed in the galaxies we studied has been in decline for six billion years - roughly since the time our Sun came into being."

Well, there would have been no point in creating more once our Sun was here, would there? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2003 9:14 PM