The universe does not stop amazing us. And not just us! Astronomers often get surprised by the things they discover about the origins and the structure of the universe.
The age of the universe is 13.7 billion years, which is counted from the so-called Big Bang. The truth is that the universe is as old as time, since before the Big Bang there was no time, right?
In 1929, the astronomer Edwin Hubble (in honor of whom the famous telescope was named) suggested that the universe is not static and is constantly expanding, which is accompanied by quite violent processes. The expansion occurs with ever-increasing speed due to an invisible but absolutely real power: the so-called dark energy.
Two opposing forces constantly clash in the Universe: the centripetal gravity (due to the mass density of the Universe) and the repulsive force of dark energy. The universe is endless but not infinite! Sometime it will fall apart under its own weight, and it will be the Big… Crunch.
If the density balance reaches the critical threshold, the Universe will open and will become flat like a paper and then will continue to expand indefinitely. Recent studies have shown that the universe may reach this point and a margin of error is only 2%.
Among the most impressive facts about the universe is that we can see is only 4% of its mass. The invisible or so-called dark matter reaches 96% of its mass!
According to the theory of eternal inflation, after the Big Bang time and space developed at different rates in different parts of infinity. The theory of eternal inflation argues that there are infinite different “bubbles”, i.e. multiple universes, each of which has its own natural laws.
However, the theory has been neither proven nor rejected yet.
These facts about the universe show how amazing and understudied it is. There is still so much to learn!