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According to a new study from the Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, the universe is getting hot, hot, hot. The study looked at the thermal history of the universe over the past 10 billion years. He found that the average gas temperature in the universe increased more than tenfold over that period. Today it has reached about 2 million degrees Kelvin, about 4 million degrees Fahrenheit.
Yi-Kuan Chiang, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, said: “Our new measurement provides direct confirmation of the fundamental work of Jim Peebles, the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics, who exposed the theory of how large-scale structure is formed in the universe.
“As the universe evolves, gravity pulls dark matter and gas into space together into galaxies and clusters of galaxies. The resistance is violent, so violent that more and more gasoline is shocked and heated. “
For this study, the scientists used a new method to measure the temperature of the gas farthest from Earth. They then compared those measurements to the gases closest to Earth and closest to present time.
Chiang said, “Now, scientists have confirmed that the universe is getting warmer over time due to the gravitational collapse of the cosmic structure and the warming will likely continue.”
Next, using data collected from two missions, Planck and Sloan Digital Sky Survey, scientists figured out how the universe’s temperature has changed over time.
After combining the data from the two missions, the scientists measured the distances of the near and distant hot gases by measuring the redshift. A redshift is a notion used by astrophysicists to estimate the cosmic age at which distant objects are observed.
Here, the redshift concept works because the light we see from objects farther from Earth is older than the light we see from objects closer to Earth – light from distant objects has traveled a long journey to reach us. This fact, along with estimating the temperature from light, allowed scientists to measure the average temperature of gases in the early universe – the gases surrounding the most distant objects – and compare this medium with the average temperature of the gases closest to Earth – today’s gases.
Chiang said, “The universe is heating up due to the natural process of galaxy formation and structure. It is not related to warming on Earth. These phenomena are happening on very different scales. They are not connected at all. “
Journal reference:
- Yi-Kuan Chiang et al., The Cosmic Thermal History Probed by Sunyaev – Zeldovich Effect Tomography, The Astrophysical Journal (2020). DOI: 10.3847 / 1538-4357 / abb403
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