Religions

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Combine 017

I thought there were some theories now that the universe is contracting?

And I didnt watch your hour long videos because I cant sit still that long, but ive been watching a newish series called "Into the universe with Stephen Hawking" and it goes over stuff like the expanding universe and dark energy and neutrinos and being able to time travel using a black hole.

Recent experimental evidence (namely the observation of distant supernova as standard candles, and the well-resolved mapping of the cosmic microwave background) has led to speculation that the expansion of the universe is not being slowed down by gravity but rather accelerating. However, since the nature of the dark energy that is postulated to drive the acceleration is unknown, it is still possible (though not observationally supported as of today) that it might eventually reverse sign and cause a collapse.

buuuuutttt....

But the experts also took a stab at what a contracting universe could look like to an observer billions of years into the future.

“As the present-day observable universe started to get really small, the observer would most likely see some of the things that happened in the early universe happen in reverse. Most notably, the temperature of the universe would eventually get so high that you could no longer have stable atoms, in which case the hypothetical observer wouldn't be able to hold himself together.”

Yikes. But fear not. It turns the expansion of the universe has been accelerating rather than slowing.

Astronomers believe that’s caused by a mysterious dark energy pulling galaxies apart, according to NASA.

“Dark energy is this idea that not only is the universe expanding, dark energy is actually making that expansion happen even faster,” said Marla Geha, as assistant professor of astronomy at Yale University. “The dark energy will actually continue the expansion of the universe forever, so there probably will not be a Big Crunch if we have the numbers right.”

But the continuous expansion would have other consequences. Over tens of billions of years, the galaxies that we see around us would get farther and farther away, making the universe more of a lonely place, Geha said.

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08...-the-big-bang/


I think the Big Crunch is still a serious theory, so you are right that scientists think at some point in billions of years the Universe may collapse. For now, the Universe is expanding and will continue to do so for a while.