B How Does Space Expand? Understanding Universe Expansion

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The universe expands as existing matter moves further apart, rather than creating new matter or mass. While it's true that mass can be converted from energy and can also be destroyed, the mechanics of space expansion remain poorly understood. Current theories suggest that the expansion does not involve the creation of new mass. The complexities of this phenomenon lead to ongoing debates among scientists. Ultimately, a definitive explanation of how space expands is still elusive.
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how can the universe be expanding if matter nor mass can be created?
 
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dirty dan said:
how can the universe be expanding if matter nor mass can be created?
Because the expansion doesn't involve creating matter. It's just existing matter getting further apart.

That said, matter/mass can certainly be created or destroyed. Mass is a form of energy, and other forms of energy can be converted to mass under the right conditions. When heavy particles decay or matter and anti-matter meet and are annihilated, mass is also destroyed.
 
The truth, there is no satisfying explanation. They really don't understand the mechanics behind how space expands... :cry:
 

Thread 'Matter density right after the decoupling'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recombination_(cosmology) Was a matter density right after the decoupling low enough to consider the vacuum as the actual vacuum, and not the medium through which the light propagates with the speed lower than ##({\epsilon_0\mu_0})^{-1/2}##? I'm asking this in context of the calculation of the observable universe radius, where the time integral of the inverse of the scale factor is multiplied by the constant speed of light ##c##.
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Thread 'Rutgers finds a transparent Einstein Cross - apparently a dark matter "halo".'

The formal paper is here. The Rutgers University news has published a story about an image being closely examined at their New Brunswick campus. Here is an excerpt: Computer modeling of the gravitational lens by Keeton and Eid showed that the four visible foreground galaxies causing the gravitational bending couldn’t explain the details of the five-image pattern. Only with the addition of a large, invisible mass, in this case, a dark matter halo, could the model match the observations...
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Thread 'Big Bang and Infinite Universe'

Hi, I’m pretty new to cosmology and I’m trying to get my head around the Big Bang and the potential infinite extent of the universe as a whole. There’s lots of misleading info out there but this forum and a few others have helped me and I just wanted to check I have the right idea. The Big Bang was the creation of space and time. At this instant t=0 space was infinite in size but the scale factor was zero. I’m picturing it (hopefully correctly) like an excel spreadsheet with infinite...
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