Universe is getting hot, hot, hot, new study suggests

The universe is heating up, according to a new study.

The study, published on October 13 in the Journal of Astrophysics, surveyed the thermal history of the universe over the past 10 billion years. He found that the average temperature of gas across the universe has risen more than 10 times over this period and has reached around 2 million degrees Kelvin today – around 4 million degrees Fahrenheit.

“Our new measurement provides direct confirmation of the seminal work of 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Jim Peebles, who exposed the theory of large-scale structure formation in the universe,” said Yi-Kuan Chiang, lead author of the study and an associate researcher at the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at Ohio State University.

The large-scale structure of the universe refers to global models 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 from space together in galaxies and clusters of galaxies,” Chiang said. “The trail is violent – so violent that more and more of the gases are electrocuted and heated.”

The results, Chiang said, showed scientists how to synchronize the progress of the formation of the cosmic structure by “checking the temperature” of the universe.

The researchers used a new method that allowed them to estimate the temperature of gases farther from Earth – which means further back in time – and compare them to gases closer to Earth and close to the Earth. ‘actual hour. Now, he said, researchers have confirmed that the universe is getting hotter over time due to the gravitational collapse of the cosmic structure, and the heating will likely continue.

To understand how the temperature of the universe has changed over time, the researchers used data on all-space light collected by two missions, Planck and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Planck is the mission of the European Space Agency which operates with a strong involvement of NASA; Sloan collects detailed images and light spectra of the universe.

They combined data from the two missions and estimated the distances of hot gases from near and far by measuring the redshift, a notion that astrophysicists use to estimate the cosmic age at which distant objects are observed. (“Redshift” gets its name from the way the wavelengths of light lengthen. The farther away something in the universe, the longer its wavelength of light. Scientists who study the cosmos call this lengthening the redshift effect.)

The concept of redshift 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 distance. longer journey to reach us. This fact, coupled with a method of estimating temperature from light, allowed researchers to measure the average temperature of gases in the early universe – gases that surround objects farther away – and compare that average with the average temperature of gases closer to Earth – gas today.

These gases in the universe today, the researchers found, reach temperatures of about 2 million degrees Kelvin – about 4 million degrees Fahrenheit, around objects closer to Earth. This is about 10 times the temperature of the gases around objects farther away and further away in time.

The universe, Chiang said, is heating up due to the natural process of galaxy formation and structure. It has nothing to do with global warming. “These phenomena occur on very different scales,” he said. “They are not connected at all.”