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The Universe Has Made Almost All the Stars It Will Ever Make:
But there's a big puzzle here. Exactly what puts a cap on the number of stars the universe has made and will ever make? This question has long been a subject of intense astrophysical debate, particularly in relation to the stellar composition of individual galaxies. For example, our current cosmological paradigm (or at least the one that most scientists subscribe to) is that we live in a universe dominated by dark matter, and in a dark matter universe the biggest galaxies should have formed the most recently,4 being assembled by the hierarchical, gravitationally driven merger of smaller systems. Yet if you examine very large, massive galaxies you find that they tend to be composed of older stars, suggesting that they've already sat around in their dotage for a very long time.
To try to explain this, astronomers invoke the idea of "quenching," where something acts to suppress or shut down the formation of new stars across galaxies. Not surprisingly, you need a pretty potent mechanism to quench anything on these scales, and among the most plausible culprits are the supermassive black holes that exist at the core of most galaxies and which can flood the space around them with photons and particles emitted from material as it screeches toward their event horizons. That outward transfer of energy can, quite literally, blow away the interstellar gas that would otherwise cool and clump into new stars.
The precise details of how this might work are certainly not yet fully understood. But there are new tantalizing clues in the fact that the masses of supermassive black holes appear to correlate with the mass of stars contained in their host galaxies.5 That is pretty shocking because even a supermassive black hole a billion times the mass of our sun only occupies a volume similar to that of our solar system. So somehow a galaxy that spans tens of thousands of light-years is intimately related to what is, in effect, a microscopic dot at its center.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2020, @02:59AM (6 children)
Every single fucking time an article about astrophysics, cosmology, particle physics, etc is published on this site or one of the many other science oriented sites on the internet, hords of know-it-alls almost instantly post their nonsense in the comments, shamelessly displaying their ignorance and ineptitude to the entire world. It's as if they actually want the whole world to see how clueless and ignorant they are.
I know some are trolls, but as for the others, do they actually think that some random basement dweller who's never accomplished anything noteworthy in his miserable, empty, worthless life actually knows better than PhD's who've studied for years and worked for decades in their respective fields ? Are they actually successful in deluding themselves into thinking they're special, unique, and have some kind of innate insight that makes them superior to all these people ? That somehow they're the next office clerk that will come up with the theory of quantum gravity or something ?
Gosh these people are pathetic.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 21 2020, @03:32AM
Well, it *has* happend. Not bloody often of course, but consider Enrico Fermi.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2020, @03:44AM (1 child)
No one wants to hear about this worthless dark matter theory anymore. It has zero predictive skill and cant be used to accomplish a single thing even in principle.
Its just invisible spheroids of mass you put in after you find your prediction is wrong... No advances in space exploration or anything cool can ever be advanced by dark matter theory, only hindered.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Friday August 21 2020, @07:23AM
unfortunately. Black Matter Lives.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2020, @06:40PM (1 child)
It sounds to me that you are insecure about people posting something that may make the published articles look bad?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:47PM
and if Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21, @02:59AM (#1039699) isn't insecure about people posting something that might make the establishment look bad then what does he care if we comment on the article and give our opinions? What's it to him if we're right or wrong, why should he be so bothered about it? If he doesn't like it he can simply not read the comments, no one is forcing him to stay here and read these articles or our comments.
We want to read the articles and comment. Not many here claim to be an expert and most people aren't. But how are we hurting anything?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @09:45PM
We ... astrophysicist and cosmologist have set a low bar for themselves unfortunately. Lets take some items from the article shall we: "we live in a universe dominated by dark matter". Ah yes, lets start with a fudge factor (dark matter) and say it dominates the universe (more like dominates somebodies equations) and then pretend everything is absolute correct with that statement. In other fields I'd call that a strawman, but heh, its true in their minds so it must be true everywhere. Then we extrapolate upon an extrapolation which is approaching madness.
And then there's "something acts to suppress or shut down the formation of new stars across galaxies". Well heh, why don't we get more work on STAR formation properly working before we worry about galaxies? Kinda weird right? Maybe if we actually understood star formation there wouldn't be "something acting" upon things? Yes dust gets charged (Cosmic rays, etc), and clumps together to former larger DUST. And only DUST. Once you approach the size of a grain of salt the physics are completely different and they bounce instead of stick and we know of NO MECHANISM to make salt-sized particles stick together. Gravity and strong force certainly aren't doing it. I know, I know, horse if front of the cart, how you going to get research money for that?????
I also find you faith in PhD's to be disturbing. Don't get me wrong, I've known some fantastically smart people who happen to have a PhD, but in my experience, one 1-in-3 PhD's are truly earned. Most of the time I'd rather have a Bachelors graduate who at least doesn't figure he's (and very occasional she's) learned everything already. As a matter of fact the Real Smart People(tm) are ONLY the ones who keep learning through their entire lives. NOT working in their field for decades but LEARNING in their field and hopefully one or two other fields as well. And I've know some who never got ANY degree and are still working as engineers (one even as THE Senior engineer in the company). Smartypants does NOT come on a piece of paper and unfortunately too many astrophysicist and cosmologist are more than willing to prove that point.
I do agree though that to many people are more than willing to display their ignorance on this and the green site. It used to be way better. And to boot, most of the comments aren't helpful anymore and actual dialog like it used to be.
And yes, I am a astrophysicist and a rocket scientist and work with satellites (last one is a minor part of my life but far more than most people here).