this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Science Memes

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/44126927

Goldilocks

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[–] Rooskie91@discuss.online 70 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (14 children)

If that blows your mind then think about this: As the universe expanded after the Big Bang, it cooled from unimaginably high temperatures. In principle, this suggest that there could have been a very short window much later, tens of millions of years after the Big Bang, when the background temperature of the entire universe was capable of sustaining life everywhere. Some physicists have suggested this might have created a brief, universe-wide “habitable epoch,” though this remains theoretical.

I'm not an expert, so this is probably not a muture understanding, but it's cool to imagine a universe where life was incredibly abundant.

Edit: I got this idea from a video, and I found it! Please transfer all criticism of my comment to this video.

[–] engywook@programming.dev 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Interesting theory, I'd never heard of it before. All of the sudden, "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away", actually seems plausible (although this theory looks like it came well after SW in 2014).

The actual paper about it: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/habitable.pdf

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