RE: Brace yourselves for gravitational waves
February 13, 2016 at 10:06 am
(This post was last modified: February 13, 2016 at 10:17 am by Anomalocaris.)
I think aractus' 5 billion years was probably taken from the estimate of when Milky Way would exhaust its available hydrogen gas, and stop forming new stars.
However, existing stars will continue to shine, the longest lived stars already born will go on shinning with thermal nuclear energy for 3 orders of magnitude longer than that.
So the era in the history of the universe when carbon and water based life can conceivable exist somewhat as we know it, residing on a planet and powered largely by a steady sun in the sky, has not run even 1/10 of 1% of its expected duration.
Heat death of universe will take 80 orders of magnitude longer than the life time of the longest lived stars to achieve.
However, existing stars will continue to shine, the longest lived stars already born will go on shinning with thermal nuclear energy for 3 orders of magnitude longer than that.
So the era in the history of the universe when carbon and water based life can conceivable exist somewhat as we know it, residing on a planet and powered largely by a steady sun in the sky, has not run even 1/10 of 1% of its expected duration.
Heat death of universe will take 80 orders of magnitude longer than the life time of the longest lived stars to achieve.
