A recent study points out that the universe It is expanding at almost 260 thousand kilometers per hour, with an uncertainty of 1.3%. And even more: the original Universe and the current one did not expand at the same rate.
Dillon Brout, a fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, led the research, dubbed Pantheon+. According to it, the Universe is expanding at 73.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec, plus or minus 1.3%.
In the past, the magnification occurred at about 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec. And as analytics like Pantheon+’s become more precise, more data becomes known.
Published in The Astrophysical Journal Last October, Brout’s research found that 66.2% of the Universe is made up of dark energy, the mysterious accelerator that drives its expansion.
Brout points out, in conversation with the Inverse portal, that “we are approaching the limit where we are hemmed in by the uncertainties of our method.”
Pantheon+ was based on two astronomical projects: Pantheon, which combines observations of 1,550 supernovae going back 10 billion years, and SHOES, which measures pulsating stars known as Cepheids, 10 million light-years away.
But, what would happen if the expansion of the Universe happened at the speed of light?
The expansion of the Universe at the speed of light, what would happen to the Earth?
The speed of light is about 299,792,458 meters per second, about 299,792,458 kilometers per hour, according to scientific estimates. This is a universal constant officially included in the International System of Units, in 1983.
In accordance with Miguel López, Xataka expert, only the stars and galaxies of the local group in which we live will remain close, due to the effects of gravity. But after trillions of years, everything in that group will converge into a single large galaxy.
The Earth will be left alone and trapped. If any extraterrestrial civilization develops during that period, it will not be able to know anything about the Universe or its origin.
“The distant future will be of completely isolated large galaxies,” estimates López’s article.
But, beyond the “solitude” of our planet, life in it will last for billions of years. The great concern lies in what measures will be taken, in this broad trajectory, to prevent how to migrate if the death of the Sun occurs.
But, as we have said, there are billions of years that may be missing.