An article in Scientific American about dark energy is well worth reading for its overview of the current state of research in the field of cosmology, but certain passages seemed strangely analogous to a debate I’ve been following on economics blogs, and I just couldn’t help but snigger my way through them…

The virtual cessation of [galactic] mergers is not the only way the universe has run out of steam since it was half its current age. Star formation, too, has been waning. Most of the stars that exist today were born in the first half of cosmic history, as first convincingly shown by several teams in the 1990s. […] More recently, researchers have learned how this trend occurred. It turns out that star formation in massive galaxies shut down early. Since the universe was half its current age, only lightweight systems have continued to create stars at a significant rate. This shift in the venue of star formation is called galaxy downsizing [see “The Midlife Crisis of the Cosmos,” by Amy J. Barger; Scientific American, January 2005]. It seems paradoxical. Galaxy formation theory predicts that small galaxies take shape first and, as they amalgamate, massive ones arise. Yet the history of star formation shows the reverse: massive galaxies are initially the main stellar birthing grounds, then smaller ones take over.
 
[…]
 
Worse, dark energy might be evolving. Some models predict that if dark energy becomes ever more dominant over time, it will rip apart gravitationally bound objects, such as galaxy clusters and galaxies. Ultimately, planet Earth will be stripped from the sun and shredded, along with all objects on it. Even atoms will be destroyed. Dark energy, once cast in the shadows of matter, will have exacted its final revenge.

Now that’s what I call a hard landing. And no amount of outsourcing is going to help.

(Oh, sorry, and my point is? That it’s good to see the hard sciences borrowing metaphors from the social sciences for once.)