Is it true that the universe is expanding faster and faster?

Answer 1

Yes:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=expanding+universe&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

Answer 2

Yes the universe is expanding at an ever increasing pace. There seems to be something pushing the universe outward. We call this Dark Energy. It has been speculated (though certainly not proven) that this is due to "vacuum energy." It seems that even the emptiness of space isn't so empty. Small particles pop into existence all over the place.... then strangely disappear again. Much research is still needed to fully understand this phenomenon. Some say that it is this that pushes the universe outward. Though I'm certainly not convinced.... yet.

Answer 3

A Yale astronomer working with a team of scientists has found that the universe might be expanding somewhat faster than most current calculations indicate.

According to Stephen Zepf, assistant professor of astronomy, the team came upon this discovery by using a new determination of the intrinsic brightness of a certain class of stars, Cepheids, that are important for determining distances to other galaxies. The study was published this month in Nature magazine.

"These Cepheids are a little fainter than we thought, so this changes the distances to a whole host of other galaxies," Zepf says. "The reason this is significant is that since Cepheids are used to calibrate the expansion of the universe, if they are fainter, then the universe is expanding slightly faster. If the universe is expanding slightly faster, then it might be a little younger than we thought.

"Nearly all galaxies are moving away from us," he adds. "The question is whether this will keep going on forever or whether eventually the universe will have enough density to collapse back on itself."

One of the primary challenges in astronomy is to determine how far away things are. One of the common ways to do this is to take a "standard candle" -- an object nearby for which the intrinsic brightness can be measured. Similar objects are then found in distant galaxies.

"You can tell how far away the galaxies are by how faint the standard candle is," Zepf explains. "It is like taking a lamp with a 60-watt light bulb and figuring out how far away the lamp is by how faint the light bulb appears to be."

"What we have done is to observe Cepheid stars, which are the primary standard candles through which galaxy distances are determined and for which the distance is believed to be known very accurately by other means," he says.

"We found that the Cepheid stars may be about 15 percent fainter than previously thought," Zepf notes. "This is analogous to finding out that the light bulb you thought was 60 watts is really only 50 watts, therefore the lamp is actually closer than you originally estimated."

Answer 4

This seems to be the most common consensus but logic dictates that it cannot happen.
The explanation being that it is merely expanding and not accelerating as such.
The proponents of this idea are burdened with task of explaining how a quantum unit of space can expand.

Answer 5

i am not going to quote anybody...

some scientists think that the universe is like a rubberband. it blew up from the Big Bang and is expanding until the "rubberband" cannot stretch any further and it collapses again and creates another "big bang."

others think the universe is expanding just the opposite. the is an infinite area that it is expanding.

check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

Answer 6

Apparently yes, but it will still look just like it does now for a thousand million years to come. Plenty of time for humanity to colonize our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy when it comes for a visit in 5 billions years.