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However, if the density is less than the critical density, the universe will continue to expand forever, previously reported. If its true density is greater than their calculations, eventually the expansion of the universe will slow and then, ultimately, reverse until it collapses. Scientists have calculated a "critical density" for the universe. Whether or not the universe will come to an end depends on its density - how spread out the matter within it might be. project scientist for Planck, in a statement (opens in new tab). "Patterns over huge patches of sky tell us about what was happening on the tiniest of scales in the moments just after our universe was born," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. Planck determined the age after mapping tiny temperature fluctuations in the CMB. The expansion of the universe functions in much the same way.Īccording to data released by the Planck team in 2013, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, give or take a hundred million years or so, according to the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (opens in new tab). If you mark multiple points on the balloon, then blow it up, you would note that each point is moving away from all of the others, though none are at the center. Think of the universe as a giant balloon. No, because if we were to travel to a distant galaxy, it would seem that all surrounding galaxies were similarly rushing away. If other galaxies all seem to be rushing away from us, doesn't that place us at the center of the universe? The expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. The Big Bang did not happen at a single point but instead was the appearance of space and time throughout the entire universe at once, according to Live Science (opens in new tab). While there are a number of speculations about the existence of other universes, there is no practical way to observe them, and as such there will never be any evidence for (or against!) them. Common cosmological questionsīecause of the enclosed and finite nature of the universe, we cannot see "outside" of our own universe. "At the heart of the mission is one of the billion pound questions of physics," the ESA's David Parker said in a statement (opens in new tab). Euclid will study dark matter and dark energy with greater precision, tracing its distribution and evolution through the universe. The European Space Agency's Planck space mission (opens in new tab) ran from 2009 to 2013 and continued the study of the cosmic microwave background.ĮSA is currently developing the Euclid mission, which should launch in 2023, according to ESA's fact sheet (opens in new tab). "Lingering doubts about the existence of dark energy and the composition of the universe dissolved when the WMAP satellite took the most detailed picture ever of the cosmic microwave background," said cosmologist Charles Seife in the journal Science (opens in new tab). WMAP mapped tiny fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the ancient light from the early universe, and determined that ordinary atoms make up only 4.6 percent of the universe, while dark matter makes up 24 percent. NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (opens in new tab) (WMAP) was a spacecraft that operated from 2001 to 2010. "That's progress, but we still have a long way to go to pin down the nature of dark energy."

Thanks to Hubble, "If you put in a box all the ways that dark energy might differ from the cosmological constant, that box would now be three times smaller," cosmologist Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement (opens in new tab). NASA's COBE satellite precisely mapped cosmic microwave background.

Since its launch, astronomers have continued to use Hubble to make cosmological measurements and refine existing ones. By more accurately measuring the distances to Cepheid variables, stars with a well-defined ratio between their brightness and their pulsations, Hubble helped to refine measurements regarding how the universe is expanding. The mission operated until 1993.Īlthough NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is probably best known for its astounding images, a primary mission (opens in new tab) was cosmological. Launched in November 1989, NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (opens in new tab) (COBE) took precise measurements of radiation across the sky. Hawking also proposed that the universe would not continue on forever but would eventually end. This is similar to Earth although the planet is finite, a person traveling around it would never find the "end" but would instead constantly circle the globe. In recent decades, cosmologist Stephen Hawking determined that the universe itself is not infinite but has a definite size.