Gaia: why some scientists think it's a nonsensical fantasy The
world's oldest living trees, bristlecone pines each stand on
their own pedestal of dolomite rock, high in the Californian
mountains All photos by Nick Paloukos Ross Andersen is a Senior
Editor at Aeon magazine. He has written extensively about
science and philosophy for several publications, including the
Atlantic and the Economist. No event, however momentous, leaves
an everlasting imprint on the world. Take the cosmic background
radiation, the faint electromagnetic afterglow of the Big Bang.
It hangs, reassuringly, in every corner of our skies, the
firmest evidence we have for the giant explosion that created
our universe. But it won’t be there forever. In a trillion
years’ time it is going to slip beyond what astronomers call the
cosmic light horizon, the outer edge of the observable universe.
The universe’s expansion will have stretched its wavelength so
wide that it will be undetectable to any observer, anywhere.
Time will have erased its own