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This future history and the timeline below assume the continued expansion of the universe. If space in the universe begins to contract, subsequent events in the timeline may not occur because the Big Crunch, the collapse of the universe into a hot, dense state similar to that after the Big Bang, will prevail. [14] [15]
Observations made by Edwin Hubble during the 1930s–1950s found that galaxies appeared to be moving away from each other, leading to the currently accepted Big Bang theory. This suggests that the universe began very dense about 13.787 billion years ago, and it has expanded and (on average) become less dense ever since. [1]
The expansion of the universe is the increase in distance between gravitationally unbound parts of the observable universe with time. [1] It is an intrinsic expansion, so it does not mean that the universe expands "into" anything or that space exists "outside" it.
The mathematical derivation of an idealized Hubble's law for a uniformly expanding universe is a fairly elementary theorem of geometry in 3-dimensional Cartesian/Newtonian coordinate space, which, considered as a metric space, is entirely homogeneous and isotropic (properties do not vary with location or direction). Simply stated, the theorem ...
The distance can then be compared to the supernovae's cosmological redshift, which measures how much the universe has expanded since the supernova occurred; the Hubble law established that the further away an object is, the faster it is receding. The unexpected result was that objects in the universe are moving away from one another at an ...
A space with a cosmological constant is qualitatively different: instead of moving outward, the cosmological horizon stays put. For any one observer, the distance to the cosmological horizon is constant. With exponentially expanding space, two nearby observers are separated very quickly; so much so, that the distance between them quickly ...
With dark energy, the expansion rate of the universe initially slows down, due to the effect of gravity, but eventually increases. The ultimate fate of the universe is the same as that of an open universe in the sense that space will continue expanding forever. A flat universe can have zero total energy. [16]
Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of fundamental questions about its origin, structure, evolution, and ultimate fate. [1]