Will Our Universe End With Its Final Light Frozen in Time?
Artist David Aguilar's illustration of the universe's final light frozen unchanging in time after Dark Energy expansion exceeds the speed of light, courtesy the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 2001.In contrast to the increasing dark void surrounding galaxies forecast for the end of the universe, here is the modern day Virgo Cluster of 2000 galaxies that still exerts tremendous gravitational influence on the Milky Way and other neighboring galaxies. Photograph courtesy Hubble Telescope.
December 20, 2001 Cambridge, Massachusetts - In 1917, physicist Albert Einstein wrote his General Theory of Relativity in which the speed of light was considered the ultimate speed for anything in the universe. He thought back then that the universe was stationary, not expanding and not contracting. But since gravity pulls things together, Dr. Einstein needed to explain why ordinary matter in the universe didn't collapse on itself. His answer was a repulsive force that he called the "cosmological constant," a mysterious force that fills the vacuum of space balancing out gravity and keeping matter apart.
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