k Galaxies of a similar age to that of the Milky Way may contain the conditions for the development of life. Jaime Garriga from the University of Barcelona in Spain and Alexander Vilenkin from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts are so wrong.
Ever since Copernicus placed the sun at the center of the universe and removed the earth from there, scientists and philosophers have estimated that there is nothing special about the place and time of our existence in the universe. Two physicists now argue otherwise.
Only galaxies of similar age to the Milky Way may contain the conditions for life to develop. Jaime Garriga from the University of Barcelona in Spain and Alexander Vilenkin from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts are so wrong. This age coincides with the period when a fundamental change occurred in the universe. Moreover the search for other planetary systems could give us an explanation whether they are right or not.
4 years ago astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Some believe that the source of the acceleration is in dark energy that acts as a force opposite to gravity and breaks down matter.
One idea is that dark energy originates from the constant creation of matter and antimatter particles in seemingly empty space. However, the mystery stems from the fact that the vacuum energy is very small - too much for it to manage the behavior of the entire universe. One day she will, say the cosmologists. The observations of the accelerating expansion of the universe, along with studies of the early universe, lead scientists to hypothesize that within a few billion years, vacuum energy will dwarf all other forms of energy, including starlight.
Today this vacuum energy constitutes about seventy percent of the total energy in the universe, while 11 billion years ago, when the universe was young, it constituted only 10 percent of the total energy.
"We seem to be living at a point in time where vacuum energy is starting to become dominant. However, in cosmic terms, the rise of this energy was quite rapid - so it does not seem surprising that this happened at this special time in the history of the universe.
However, Gariga and Velinkin believe that they have discovered why it is difficult for intelligent life to develop during the transitional period. The conditions for the development of civilizations, the two claim, will only be found in our galaxy or in galaxies of the same age. New, newly formed galaxies will not contain the heavy elements like zinc and iron needed to form planets. This is because they are smaller and therefore its weaker gravity will not be able to hold the material that is thrown around by exploding stars. Small galaxies are also denser and therefore planets will have unstable orbits and tend to collide and crash into stars. If vacuum energy was weaker in the distant past, it doesn't seem like there was anyone who could measure it.
In their estimation, the energy of the void constitutes even more than the measurements showed, and it constitutes close to 90 percent of all the energy in the universe. Therefore, if dark energy is considered a necessary condition for intelligent life, experiments are needed that can give measurable results. For example, as more planets are found outside the solar system, it is worthwhile to check whether even more distant galaxies will have the conditions for the formation of life-bearing planets.
One response
The average void energy is zero
The vacuum energy is a virtual energy that makes it possible to explain cont processes in a mathematical way.
The probability that you will create positive gravity is low, but the probability that you will create negative gravity is even lower.