The Universe is Getting Hot, Hot, Hot, a New Study Suggests
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:
The universe is getting hot, hot, hot, a new study suggests:
The study, published Oct. 13 in the Astrophysical Journal, probed the thermal history of the universe over the last 10 billion years. It found that the mean temperature of gas across the universe has increased more than 10 times over that time period and reached about 2 million degrees Kelvin today-approximately 4 million degrees Fahrenheit.
"Our new measurement provides a direct confirmation of the seminal work by Jim Peebles-the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics-who laid out the theory of how the large-scale structure forms in the universe," said Yi-Kuan Chiang, lead author of the study and a research fellow at The Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics.
The large-scale structure of the universe refers to the global patterns of galaxies and galaxy clusters on scales beyond individual galaxies. It is formed by the gravitational collapse of dark matter and gas.
"As the universe evolves, gravity pulls dark matter and gas in space together into galaxies and clusters of galaxies," Chiang said. "The drag is violent-so violent that more and more gas is shocked and heated up."
[...] The researchers used a new method that allowed them to estimate the temperature of gas farther away from Earth-which means further back in time-and compare them to gases closer to Earth and near the present time. Now, he said, researchers have confirmed that the universe is getting hotter over time due to the gravitational collapse of cosmic structure, and the heating will likely continue.
Journal Reference:
Yi-Kuan Chiang, et al. The Cosmic Thermal History Probed by Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect Tomography - IOPscience, The Astrophysical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abb403)
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.