If The Universe is Expanding.. where are we going?

Answer 1

In the Big Bang model the "distance" between galaxies increases, but the galaxies themselves don't move.

A key assumption of the Big Bang is that the Universe is homogeneous or relatively uniform. As the Universe expands, the space between each galaxy—including our own—is increasing in a uniform manner.

Astronomers typically divide the distance between two galaxies into two parts:

D = a(t) x R.

The function a(t) describes how the size of the Universe increases, while the distance R is independent of any changes in the size of the Universe. The coordinates based on R are called "co-moving coordinates."

A good way to help visualize the expanding Universe is to compare space with the surface of an expanding balloon. This analogy was used by Arthur Eddington, as early as 1933, in his book The Expanding Universe. If the balloon is blown up then, the distances between the dots increase in the same way as the distances between the galaxies.

The Universe may be finite in size and growing like the surface of an expanding balloon, but it could also be infinite. Galaxies move apart like points on the expanding balloon, but the galaxies themselves do not expand because they are gravitationally bound.

There is no center of the Universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the Universe started with a "Big Bang" about 14 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no center to the expansion. It is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualized as an ordinary explosion. The Universe is not expanding out from a centre into space. The entire Universe itself is expanding, and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell.

The Big Bang, as far as we understand it, was an explosion—of space, not an explosion—in space.

We can see back towards the Big Bang itself, and detect a faint background glow from the hot primordial gases of the early Universe. This Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) is uniform in all directions. This tells us that it is not matter which is expanding outwards from a point, but rather, it is space itself which expands evenly.

Answer 2

It isn't that the Universe is expanding into space - it's that space itself is expanding. There isn't an empty volume into which we are reaching further and further - to say there is "nothing" outside the Universe doesn't actually work because there is nowhere for that "nothing" to be.

So as the universe expands, it's just more of the universe, staying where it is.

Or, a shorter answer arrived at by taking a look at the world today: To heck in a handbasket.

Answer 3

When the universe came into existence,it expanded radially.
For the first 30 billionths of a second it expanded into nothing,the expansion rate was regulated by the principle that governs the speed of light.
When it reached about 2 cm in diameter,and the speed of light,the acceleration stopped.
The universe contained all the ingredients to evolve into the universe that we experience to-day.
It expands into nothing and the only thing that prevents a runaway expansion is the speed of light.

Answer 4

It ain't like we're going somewhere. It's like, no matter where you are in the universe, everything else keeps getting farther away. It's like somebody keeps putting more space inside every little bit of the old space.

If you have a cubic-meter box full of empty space, 10^-55 cubic meter of new space is created inside the box every second and immediately leaks out of the box. Physical objects don't get stretched by the expansion; instead, all the new space ends up in the great voids (bubbles) of the cosmic foam. The clusters of galaxies that surround the voids get stretched farther apart from each other.

Answer 5

we are able to assert that the Universe is increasing via skill of making use of Hubble's regulation which tells us that a galaxy's velocity of recession (the value at which this is shifting removed from us) is proportional to its distance from us, i.e. a galaxy further away strikes removed from us speedier than one on the edge people. The pull of gravity isn't as super on those further away so as that they flow speedier. it fairly is in many situations complicated to appreciate because of the reality that should advise we are interior the centre if each little element is shifting removed from us - so attempt to think of of the galaxies as dots on a balloon. As you inflate the balloon, all of the dots get further removed from one yet yet another and once you're sitting on one dot, it would not look such as you're shifting yet extremely that each little element else is. There are 3 fashions for the increasing universe: the 1st is the region the mass indoors the Universe isn't super adequate to triumph over the value of growth. The Universe will enhance perpetually. the 2nd is the region the value of growth isn't adequate to triumph over the mass and gravity pulls each little element decrease decrease back to the region it began. the bright sort is the region the Universe incorporates adequate mass to stay far off from non-end growth, yet now no longer lots that it will crumple - it is going to stay in one place, now no longer increasing or contracting. I undergo in techniques interpreting that the preliminary burst of light from the super Bang extra advantageous out in a halo of light and if we could get to the modern-day 'area' of the Universe, we could see that soft, yet does now no longer have the skill to make certain something previous it, because of the reality soft hasn't reached there yet! i like that concept XD

Answer 6

Haven't you noticed humans expanding?

Everytime I walk down the street it's apparent how close we are to the universe. We are both expanding. (not me)

Answer 7

We too are expanding. Thst is, most objects in the Universe are moving outwards, including us, from the center.

Big bang theory. We will eventually, (a freakishly loing time from now) start collapsing back in.

Answer 8

It isn't that the Universe is expanding into space - it's that space itself is expanding.

Answer 9

Up and out on a very, very long trip which will eventually take us smack into the middle of the Andromeda galaxy. The Sun will most likely begin its death cycle before that happens, however, in four to five billion more years.

Answer 10

nowhere; unless the expansion affects the gravitational pull of the earth and its rotation around the sun..... then we're kinda staying put; but our galaxy is moving in sync with space, ouward, i believe. but we are not affected entirely.
so long as gravity remains..... i believe we, personally, are ok. :)