What is the ultimate fate of the universe?

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The discussion centers on the fate of the universe, particularly regarding the acceleration of its expansion due to Dark Energy. Current scientific evidence suggests that while the universe is expanding, the behavior of Dark Energy remains uncertain, leading to various potential outcomes. These include the possibility of the universe continuing to expand indefinitely, eventually slowing down, or even collapsing in a "Big Rip." The average density of the universe is slightly above critical density, which could influence its future trajectory. Ultimately, the precise fate of the universe remains unknown and is a topic of ongoing scientific inquiry.
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Hey, sorry to keep posting. It's just that my curiosity has spiked a bit over the last few days. I have another question.

Does the vast majority of scientific evidence (theoretical and experimental) show that the expansion of the universe is speeding up? If so, is there any reason to believe that it would ever slow down?

Or will it just keep expanding forever?
 
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Good question, keeping asking them!

The answer to this one is we don't know.

The average density of the universe seems to be just greater than the critical density so that the universe will one day in the far future stop expanding and then contract.

However that scenario is before Dark Energy enters the scene...

It is thought Dark Energy that causes the cosmic expansion to accelerate has only been significant in recent history (since the epoch of objects seen at z ~1). Its equation of state, or behaviour, is still being determined. This effect could die away again in the future leaving the universe eventually to collapse, to continue to expand (the favoured option) or even to dominate everything in a 'Big Rip', ripping atoms apart from each other!

On the other hand we could be mistaken, see the many discussions on these Forums about this subject.

Garth
 
Last edited:

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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