Hey Fuzzpilz and anyone else with a mind for cosmology, I just thought you might be interested in hearing more about the mass and extent of our little universe. (What a long time it has been since I checked the Forum de Rínke!) Not too long ago, astronomers proposed that there could be three possible futures of the universe. By the way, all of these ideas assume that the Big Bang theory is true.

1) If the universe possessed a certain amount of matter (widely known as "omega"), the forces of the universe's own gravity would eventually balance out with the outward force from the original Big Bang. The expansion of the universe would slow down because of the gravity and would approach a standstill where all of the galaxies and superclusters would neither move outward nor inward. This idea is very ideal, EXTREMELY unlikely and (to me) would suggest premeditation and planning by some outside entity.

2) If the mass of the universe were to exceed omega, then the force of gravity would eventually cause the universe's material to re-collapse, most likely back into a singular point. This is also known as the Big Crunch theory. Other ideas also state that this new singularity could re-explode in another Big Bang and create another universe. This is another speculatively optimistic outlook, since a whole "circle of life" thing is established.

3) Finally, the final possibility would occur if the universe's mass is less than the desired omega. Needless to say at this point, the gravitational property of all of the universe's mass would be insufficient for it to pull itself back together. Our universe would continue to expand and expand, slowing maybe a little due to some gravity, but never relenting to go outwards. Essentially, the universe will burn itself out, dissipate to nearly zero density, and cool to nearly absolute zero. I have heard this being called the Heat Death.

Anyway, astronomers have done some fancy research and while it is practically impossible for us to determine the true mass of the universe right now, they have made some estimates that suggest that the universe contains much less than 1 omega's worth of matter. They had to make estimates on the amount of dark matter--the matter that isn't in stars and, therefore, isn't lit up for us to see--but even large estimates didn't bring the total up far enough. I am not putting my word on it, but I think their latest estimate was 0.7 times omega. Correct me if I'm in the wrong about anything here or if you've heard differently. Well, back to doing taxes for my relatives...hey, I just thought of a funny name-quote...

--Light"the only sure things in this universe: taxes and Heat Death"side