Vibrations in Space: Will They Keep Going Forever?

[Noangels]

Say someone hits an iron block in space with a metal hammer, causing vibration.

Will vibrations in space keep vibrating forever?

To my understanding vibrations stop vibrating on Earth because the object vibrating sends the energy into the air which takes that energy away from it. Since there isn't any air in space to take the energy away will the object vibrating vibrate forever?

My physics teacher said that eventually the vibration will make the iron block heat up and eventually start giving off photons of heat but he wasn't 100% sure of this answer.
Please help.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[jbsteele]

aThe vibrations will eventually die out due to a process known as damping. In a vacuum, the block will experience something called "atomistic damping" which is caused by the interactions of the atoms in the block with their surrounding environment. This will cause the vibration to slowly decrease and eventually stop.