Humans responsible for shortening Universe's life: Study

London, Nov 26 (UNI) Even as talks of mankind posing threat to Earth gather pace, a new study revealed that human activities may be shortening the life of the Universe as well.

The startling claim investigates the consequences for the cosmos of Quantum theory. Over the past few years, cosmologists have been studying about the level of subatomic particles to understand the universe.

The study suggests that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the Universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

The strong allegations are made by Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end.

''Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,'' The Telegraph quoted Dr Krauss as saying.

The team came to the following conclusion by calculating how the energy state of our universe - a kind of summation of all its particles and all their energies - has evolved since the Big Bang of creation 13.7 billion years ago.

UNI