Pondering the ultimate fate of the universe

The universe could be reborn in a new big bang after its current cycle of expansion? No one knows, of course, but I like this idea better than an alternative that is often called "the heat death of the universe."

In the heat death scenario, the universe keeps expanding out from the original big bang, never to return. It just disperses out to basically a cold nothingness; with stars running out of fuel and so forth. I like the idea of the universe returning back to another big bang a lot better.

Of course all of this is long past our lifetimes, but it can have philosophic implications.

In the late 1990s, astronomers found evidence that the expansion of the universe may be accelerating. This due to something called "dark" because they don't see it; dark energy. They just see the effect it has on the growing distance between galaxies.

Dark could also imply evil as I think about the idea of the heat death, but the term actually just comes from something astronomers haven't yet seen. They just see evidence that the galaxies are moving apart; the expansion of the universe. That rate of expansion could be changing over time.

Back when I was in college, before the 1990s, the ultimate fate of the universe, between rebirth and heat death, was also being discussed.

Back then the question was about how much matter is there, in the universe, to create the gravity needed for pulling the galaxies back together after they were flung out from the big bang? Matter is said to create the gravity needed to eventually halt the expansion of the universe so it falls back to another big bang birth; so to speak.

Even back then, it was beginning to look like the universe did not have enough mass for returning back to another big bang. Then came the 1990s discovery that the galaxies were not only dispersing out from start, they were actually being pushed apart faster and faster as time goes on. Some yet unseen thing was continuing to push them apart. They started calling that dark energy.

Well, now there is even newer evidence that the unseen thing, whatever it is, could be weakening, or basically changing over time. It could even lead back to pulling the universe together again. I guess dark energy, itself, pulling the universe back together again. It's said to be related to the nature of space/time itself. I guess space/time expanding and then, eventually, possibly contracting again back to start. This is all speculation, of course, as we continue trying to learn the big questions about the universe and our place in it.

Article I found on an NPR website.

Dark Energy is weakening.