Apr 14, 2011 09:02 GMT  ·  By
About 5 billion years from now, Andromeda and the Milky Way will collide and merge with each other, giving large to one of the largest spiral galaxies in the Universe
   About 5 billion years from now, Andromeda and the Milky Way will collide and merge with each other, giving large to one of the largest spiral galaxies in the Universe

Researchers suggest in a new study that the telltale signs showing us today that the Big Bang actually existed may disappear entirely within about 1 trillion years. Our most distant descendants will have a very tough time figuring out what happened in the early Universe.

The Big Bang model is now the most widely-accepted theory explaining how the Cosmos formed. It holds that everything originated from a single non-dimensional point of infinite energy and mass, which underwent a period of extreme inflation some 13.75 billion years ago.

As the Universe sprung into being, it produced light and states of matter that have never been observed anywhere ever since. All these phenomena left behind clues that pointed astronomers in the right direction, towards developing the Big Bang theory.

Some of these clues include the yet-to-be-detected gravitational waves proposed by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, and the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), a layer of relic light that permeates the Universe, and was produced a few million years after the Big Bang.

But the history of everything will not become totally concealed 1 trillion years from now. Experts say that some back-up clues will still remain, that our descendants could use to study the time when the Cosmos came into being, Space reports.

That much time into the future, the Universe will be tremendously different than it is today. The Sun and other stars around us will have burned out and gone dark. By that time, the galaxy that will form once Andromeda and the Milky Way collide will have already collided with other massive galaxies.

In the galactic neighborhood, cosmic expansion will drive galaxies so far apart that they will become invisible in the night sky. The CMB will be stretched out to such an extent that the wavelengths of photons making it up will exceed the wavelength of the visible Universe.

But there is hope for our descendants, the new study show. Future astronomers will be able to analyze hypervelocity stars, stellar objects cast out of the Milkomeda galaxy, and determine the fate of the entire Cosmos.

“We used to think that observational cosmology wouldn't be feasible a trillion years from now. Now we know this won't be the case. Hypervelocity stars will allow Milkomeda residents to learn about the cosmic expansion and reconstruct the past,” said Avi Loeb.

The expert, who holds an appointment as the director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) Institute for Theory and Computation, made the announcement in a statement.

“Astronomers of the future won't have to take the Big Bang on faith. With careful measurements and clever analysis, they can find the subtle evidence outlining the history of the Universe.” Loeb explains.

Details of the new work will be published in the upcoming issue of the esteemed scientific Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.