Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: The Scientist on 19/12/2010 10:43:02
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Well, this is a question I thought of, as if we do manage to remove all dust on Earth, we'll affect the ecosystem. So if we ever managed to remove all dust in the Universe, excluding Earth, what effects/ aftermath will it cause? Thanks!
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Ah...surely the bigger question how can we do it? [:)]
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Ah...surely the bigger question how can we do it? [:)]
haha ture true, but assuming that we can do it, what are its effects on the Universe?
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It depends what you mean by dust (as opposed to gas). Interstellar dust is an essential feature that helps stars to form by gravitational collapse. and so this would be affected but only for a while because stars create dust and would eventually replenish it. This is just the same as the effects on the earth because dust has a natural cycle and would eventually be replaced.
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Another application for a vacuum cleaner. Sorry to recycle this joke.
If you mean to make it magically disappear I guess the effect would be to make the unverse expand more quickly. Dust makes up a significant perentage of the total visible mass but not much of the total mass, so I guess the effect may be small. However we do not understand very much about the balance of mass vs dark energy and so maybe it could have significant effects if mass were suddenly to disappear. I am not sure that such a hypothetical, and impossible, idea has much value except to a zen physicist :-)
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Another application for a vacuum cleaner. Sorry to recycle this joke.
If you mean to make it magically disappear I guess the effect would be to make the unverse expand more quickly. Dust makes up a significant perentage of the total visible mass but not much of the total mass, so I guess the effect may be small. However we do not understand very much about the balance of mass vs dark energy and so maybe it could have significant effects if mass were suddenly to disappear. I am not sure that such a hypothetical, and impossible, idea has much value except to a zen physicist :-)
Allowing the universe to expand more quickly is that an advantage or disadvantage?
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Rats! Graham beat me to it.
I was about to say we'd put Hoover out of business [:D]
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"Allowing the universe to expand more quickly is that an advantage or disadvantage?"
Nobody knows. We don't have a good enough understanding of what this would mean.