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December 2, 2008 12:19:11 PM CST

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Is Time Running Out on Time?

Posted Jan 1, 08 5:39 PM CST in Science & Health 

(Newser) – Astronomers have been scratching their heads for years trying to figure out why exploding stars at the very edge of the universe seem to be moving faster than ones in the middle. Some theories say the acceleration is due to mysterious "dark energy,"but a new one posits that the stars aren't speeding up at all—but that time itself is slowing down.

If time was moving faster billions of years ago, it would explain the apparent acceleration of images of stars reaching our sight now. It also suggests that time itself could one day stop completely, leaving the universe frozen in time forever. "We believe that time emerged during the Big Bang, and if time can emerge, it can also disappear—that's just the reverse effect," a cosmologist said.

Sources Wired, Daily Telegraph (UK)

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The theory that time is slowing down would explain why stars billions of light years away appear to be moving faster, but it also carries the chilling implication that time will someday, billions of years...   (Shutterstock.com)
This artist's illustration provided by NASA shows what the brightest supernova ever recorded, known as SN 2006gy, may have looked like when it exploded. Inconsistencies in the speed of light might be...   (Associated Press)
Some physicists believe that certain phenomena might be caused by the slowing of time itself.   (Shutterstock.com)
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