question: If space is cooling down constantly and will some time come to an absolute zero, where does all the energy go?
comment: Space is not cooling down, the heat is spreading out. why does this matter? When you have something that is quite hot and something else that is quite cold you can do something special. Suppose you've got a hot fire and cold water. You can boil the water which causes it to expand, you can use that expansion to turn a turbine. This is how we make electricity. Its also how trains form the 1800 works. most of our energy comes from turbines. but if everything is the same temperature then you cannot do this anymore. If everyone is the same temperature as the water, and everything that can be burned has been burned, then you cannot boil the water. All energy on earth comes or came from the sun. This process of heat spreading out is also affecting stars. The theory is that eventually all heat everywhere will be completely and evenly spread out. Its not hard to imagine why. Suppose you fill your tub half with cold water and half with warm water. What happens? Is half the tub warm and the other half cold? not, it mixes and the tub is warm. This is what's happening in the universe. (we think the universe is also expanding, and as things expand they cool. so probably the universe is also cooling. but i'm thinking this wasn't really what you were asking about_
passages: In spite of the enormous transfers of energy into and from the Earth, it maintains a relatively constant temperature because, as a whole, there is little net gain or loss: Earth emits via atmospheric and terrestrial radiation (shifted to longer electromagnetic wavelengths) to space about the same amount of energy as it receives via insolation (all forms of electromagnetic radiation).
   The idea that "empty" space can have an intrinsic energy associated to it, and that there is no such thing as a "true vacuum" is seemingly unintuitive. It is often argued that the entire universe is completely bathed in the zero-point radiation, and as such it can add only some constant amount to calculations. Physical measurements will therefore reveal only deviations from this value. For many practical calculations zero-point energy is dismissed by fiat in the mathematical model as a term that has no physical effect. Such treatment causes problems however, as in Einstein's theory of general relativity the absolute energy value of space is not an arbitrary constant and gives rise to the cosmological constant. For decades most physicists assumed that there was some undiscovered fundamental principle that will remove the infinite zero-point energy and make it completely vanish. If the vacuum has no intrinsic, absolute value of energy it will not gravitate. It was believed that as the universe expands from the aftermath of the Big Bang, the energy contained in any unit of empty space will decrease as the total energy spreads out to fill the volume of the universe; galaxies and all matter in the universe should begin to decelerate. This possibility was ruled out in 1998 by the discovery that the expansion of the universe is not slowing down but is in fact accelerating, meaning empty space does indeed have some intrinsic energy. The discovery of dark energy is best explained by zero-point energy, though it still remains a mystery as to why the value appears to be so small compared to huge value obtained through theory - the cosmological constant problem.
   Mass is also not generally conserved in open systems. Such is the case when various forms of energy and matter are allowed into, or out of, the system. However, unless radioactivity or nuclear reactions are involved, the amount of energy escaping (or entering) such systems as heat, mechanical work, or electromagnetic radiation is usually too small to be measured as a decrease (or increase) in the mass of the system.
   However, Earth's energy balance and heat fluxes depend on many factors, such as atmospheric composition (mainly aerosols and greenhouse gases), the albedo (reflectivity) of surface properties, cloud cover and vegetation and land use patterns.
  
  Changes in surface temperature due to Earth's energy budget do not occur instantaneously, due to the inertia of the oceans and the cryosphere. The net heat flux is buffered primarily by becoming part of the ocean's heat content, until a new equilibrium state is established between radiative forcings and the climate response.
  
  Section::::Energy budget.
   There is no clear way to define the total energy in the universe using the most widely accepted theory of gravity, general relativity. Therefore, it remains controversial whether the total energy is conserved in an expanding universe. For instance, each photon that travels through intergalactic space loses energy due to the redshift effect. This energy is not obviously transferred to any other system, so seems to be permanently lost. On the other hand, some cosmologists insist that energy is conserved in some sense; this follows the law of conservation of energy.
   Pascual Jordan first suggested that since the positive energy of a star's mass and the negative energy of its gravitational field together may have zero total energy, conservation of energy would not prevent a star being created by a quantum transition of the vacuum. George Gamow recounted putting this idea to Albert Einstein: "Einstein stopped in his tracks and, since we were crossing a street, several cars had to stop to avoid running us down".
   Longwave radiation is usually defined as outgoing infrared energy leaving the planet. However, the atmosphere absorbs parts initially, or cloud cover can reflect radiation. Generally, heat energy is transported between the planet's surface layers (land and ocean) to the atmosphere, transported via evapotranspiration and latent heat fluxes or conduction/convection processes. Ultimately, energy is radiated in the form of longwave infrared radiation back into space.
  
  Recent satellite observations indicate additional precipitation, which is sustained by increased energy leaving the surface through evaporation (the latent heat flux), offsetting increases in longwave flux to the surface.
  
  Section::::Earth's energy imbalance.
   A direct transformation of energy occurs when hydrogen produced in the Big Bang collects into structures such as planets, in a process during which part of the gravitational potential is to be converted directly into heat. In Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, for example, such heat from continued collapse of the planets' large gas atmospheres continues to drive most of the planets' weather systems. These systems, consisting of atmospheric bands, winds, and powerful storms, are only partly powered by sunlight. However, on Uranus, little of this process occurs.
   Low temperature is often achieved by a coolant, which can run out. Space missions have either ended or shifted to "warm" observations when the coolant supply used up. For example, WISE ran out of coolant in October 2010, about ten months after being launched. (See also NICMOS, Spitzer Space Telescope)
  
  Section::::Observatories.
  
  Section::::Observatories.:Space observatories.
   Nuclear particles like protons and neutrons are not destroyed in fission and fusion processes, but collections of them can have less mass than if they were individually free, in which case this mass difference can be liberated as heat and radiation in nuclear reactions (the heat and radiation have the missing mass, but it often escapes from the system, where it is not measured). The energy from the Sun is an example of this form of energy conversion. In the Sun, the process of hydrogen fusion converts about 4 million tonnes of solar matter per second into electromagnetic energy, which is radiated into space.
   All of the observable universe is filled with large numbers of photons, the so-called cosmic background radiation, and quite likely a correspondingly large number of neutrinos. The current temperature of this radiation is about 3 K, or −270 degrees Celsius or −454 degrees Fahrenheit.
  
  Section::::Measurement.
   The major atmospheric gases (oxygen and nitrogen) are transparent to incoming sunlight but are also transparent to outgoing thermal (infrared) radiation. However, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and other trace gases are opaque to many wavelengths of thermal radiation. The Earth's surface radiates the net equivalent of 17 percent of the incoming solar energy in the form of thermal infrared. However, the amount that directly escapes to space is only about 12 percent of incoming solar energy. The remaining fraction, 5 to 6 percent, is absorbed by the atmosphere by greenhouse gas molecules.
   The properties of dark matter that allow it to collapse quickly without radiation pressure, also mean that it cannot "lose" energy by radiation either. Losing energy is necessary for particles to collapse into dense structures beyond a certain point. Therefore dark matter collapses into huge but diffuse filaments and haloes, and not into stars or planets. Ordinary matter, which "can" lose energy by radiation, forms dense objects and also gas clouds when it collapses.
  
  Section::::Early universe.:First molecules.
   In a transfer of energy as heat without work being done, there are changes of entropy in both the surroundings which lose heat and the system which gains it. The increase, , of entropy in the system may be considered to consist of two parts, an increment, that matches, or 'compensates', the change, , of entropy in the surroundings, and a further increment, that may be considered to be 'generated' or 'produced' in the system, and is said therefore to be 'uncompensated'. Thus
  
  This may also be written
  
  The total change of entropy in the system and surroundings is thus
   As the universe evolves in time, more and more of its energy becomes trapped in irreversible states (i.e., as heat or other kinds of increases in disorder). This has been referred to as the inevitable thermodynamic heat death of the universe. In this heat death the energy of the universe does not change, but the fraction of energy which is available to do work through a heat engine, or be transformed to other usable forms of energy (through the use of generators attached to heat engines), grows less and less.
  
  Section::::Conservation of energy.
   In a process in which a photon is annihilated (absorbed), we can think of the photon as making a transition into the vacuum state. Similarly, when a photon is created (emitted), it is occasionally useful to imagine that the photon has made a transition out of the vacuum state. An atom, for instance, can be considered to be "dressed" by emission and reabsorption of "virtual photons" from the vacuum. The vacuum state energy described by is infinite. We can make the replacement:
  
  the zero-point energy density is:
  
  or in other words the spectral energy density of the vacuum field:
   When Edward P. Tryon came out in 1973 with a paper in "Nature" titled "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?”, Tryon mentions how he learned from Bergmann how our universe could have started with zero energy and not contradict the conservation of energy law because mass energy is positive and gravitational energy is negative and they cancel each other out and so our universe then could begin with zero energy.
   If changes in external temperatures or internal heat generation changes are too rapid for the equilibrium of temperatures in space to take place, then the system never reaches a state of unchanging temperature distribution in time, and the system remains in a transient state.
   Section::::Energy.
   The thermal mass is warmed passively by the sun or additionally by internal heating systems during the day. Thermal energy stored in the mass is then released back into the interior during the night. It is essential that it be used in conjunction with the standard principles of passive solar design.
   BULLET::::1. With things moving around in orbits and nothing staying still, the question may be quite reasonably asked, stationary relative to what? The answer is for the energy to be zero (and in the absence of gravity which complicates the issue somewhat), the exhaust must stop relative to the "initial" motion of the rocket before the engines were switched on. It is possible to do calculations from other reference frames, but consideration for the kinetic energy of the exhaust and propellant needs to be given. In Newtonian mechanics the initial position of the rocket is the centre of mass frame for the rocket/propellant/exhaust, and has the minimum energy of any frame.
   If there is no incoming gravitational radiation, according to general relativity, two bodies orbiting one another will emit gravitational radiation, causing the orbits to gradually lose energy.
  
  The formulae describing the loss of energy and angular momentum due to gravitational radiation from the two bodies of the Kepler problem have been calculated. The rate of losing energy (averaged over a complete orbit) is given by
   Vacuum energy
  
  Vacuum energy is an underlying background energy that exists in space throughout the entire Universe. This behavior is codified in Heisenberg's energy–time uncertainty principle. Still, the exact effect of such fleeting bits of energy is difficult to quantify. The vacuum energy is a special case of zero-point energy that relates to the quantum vacuum.
   Given that the power of the Hawking radiation is the rate of evaporation energy loss of the black hole:
  
  Since the total energy of the black hole is related to its mass by Einstein's mass–energy formula :
  
  We can then equate this to our above expression for the power:
  
  This differential equation is separable, and we can write:
  
  The black hole's mass is now a function of time . Integrating over from (the initial mass of the black hole) to zero (complete evaporation), and over from zero to :
   Another important component of the CIB is the infrared emission by quasars. In these systems most of the gravitational potential energy of the matter falling into the central black hole is converted into X-rays, which would escape unless they are absorbed by the dust torus of the accretion disc. This absorbed light is again re-emitted in the infrared, and in total gives about 20–30% of the full power of the CIB; however at some specific wavelengths this is the dominant source of CIB energy.
  
presuppositions: Space is cooling down constantly. Space is cooling down constantly.
corrections: Space is not cooling down, the heat is spreading out.  The heat in space is spreading out, it is not cooling down.
raw_presuppositions: Space is cooling down constantly. Space is cooling down constantly.
raw_corrections: Space is not cooling down, the heat is spreading out.  The heat in space is spreading out, it is not cooling down.