• Question: Which force will ultimately win in the universe:gravity, which pulls matter together, or dark energy, which accelerates the expansion of the universe?

    Asked by Rmya on 20 Mar 2025.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 20 Mar 2025:

      At the moment it looks like there isn’t enough matter in the Universe to drive the big crunch at the end of the Universe. It looks like we’ll be expanding for ever!

    • Photo: Pete Webb

      Pete Webb answered on 24 Mar 2025:

      These two forces are not in competition, so neither is going to win. Gravity is an inevitable consequence of mass. And what dark energy is is still a mystery.

Comments

  • Photo: Andrew M

    Andrew M commented on :

    The most recent set of results have just been released by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), and they’re …odd. It looks like Dark Energy may be weirder than we thought, if the results are confirmed as genuine. As they stand at the moment there’s a suggestion that the strength of Dark Energy may not be constant, but has weakened over time. What this means for the fate of the universe, I don’t know, it may still be too early to call.
    DESI has a public website and even a You-tube channel where the latest results are discussed if you’d like to know more. Doubtless it will also get picked up by other astronomy and astrophysics channels and discussed in detail there until the result is either confirmed or evaporates.