1. No End in Sight: The Runaway Expansion of the Universe and the Fate of the Cosmos By Geoff Handsfield and Orville Day Dept. of Physics, East Carolina University 1 April 2008

2. Olber's Paradox, “The Dark Night Riddle” Why is the sky dark at night? Consider the following: Light radiation never terminates-- only spreads out Trillions of stars in observable Universe. 400 billion stars in Milky Way Galaxy. All light eventually reaches Earth.

3. Inside the Big Dipper

4. Types of Galaxies Spiral Disks Elliptical Irregular

5. Einstein & Relativity, Hubble & Expansion Space-time is fabric, not void. Mass creates dimples in fabric. Galaxies expanding away. Simplest explanation: space-time stretching.

6. Big Bang

8. Big Crunch? Prevalent for 30 years in astronomy Idea that Universe will collapse back to Big Bang Relies on assumption that mass/gravitation will eventually overpower Universal expansion. Proven false in 1998.

9. The Supernova Cosmology Project Dr. Saul Perlmutter at UC, Berkeley Measured Red Shifts of Type Ia Supernovae (White dwarfs in binary system absorb matter until reach Chandrasekhar Limit)

10. Hypothesis 3 Scenarios Expansion slowing, result in Big Crunch Expansion slowing, result in equilibrium Expansion speeding up, accelerating Univ.

11. Results Expansion increases in time. Expansion increases in time. Fate of the Universe-- cold death. Fate of the Universe-- cold death. Confirmed by independent research conducted by rival team, High-Z Supernova Search Team. Confirmed by independent research conducted by rival team, High-Z Supernova Search Team. Big Crunch unlikely. Big Crunch unlikely.

12. Cause of the Expansion- Dark Energy Energy counterpart to dark matter. Source of dark energy unknown. Opposite force to gravitation. Exhibits properties of negative pressure. As Universe expands, more dark energy seeps into all space, providing more anti-gravity.

13. Fate of the Universe Observable Universe increases in time. Objects in observable Universe decreasing. Fewer interactions with celestial bodies. Ultimate destruction by black holes at center of galaxies. Black holes ultimately evaporate by Hawking radiation. Universe a lonely place-- average density drops toward zero. Only stray particles remain.

14. Olber's Revisited Finite Age of Universe Finite Speed of Light Accelerated Expansion of Universe Stretching of Space-Time

15. Sources Bennett, Donohue, Schneider, Voit. The Cosmic Perspective. Goldsmith. The Runaway Universe. Harrison. Cosmology. http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/152808main_ RSoph_full.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/152808main_ RSoph_full.jpg http://www- news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/darkmatter0903.jpg http://www- news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/darkmatter0903.jpg http://www.theonlinecandyshop.com/ProductImag es/CRUNCH.jpg http://www.theonlinecandyshop.com/ProductImag es/CRUNCH.jpg http://preposterousuniverse.com/spacetimeandgeo metry/covercrop.jpg http://preposterousuniverse.com/spacetimeandgeo metry/covercrop.jpg http://z.about.com/d/physics/1/0/r/-/-/- /BlackHole.jpg http://z.about.com/d/physics/1/0/r/-/-/- /BlackHole.jpg