[larue]

As a astronomy novice/enthusiasts and I’m very intrigued with the recent debate between black holes and Gravastar theories.

The theory of a Gravastar as mentioned seems to account for two of the black hole issues, information being one of them. But, I believe it would also address the debate of whether or not the universe is contacting or expanding.

Using the published theory that the universe as we know may be inside a Gravastar lays the groundwork for my theory, “the universe is both expanding and contacting”. As “our” Gravastar moves through space and encounters matter, which it draws into itself, the pressure in the Gravastar bubble increases like the air in a balloon when compressed. This would cause our universe inside the bubble to expand for the period of time that our Gravastar was drawing in matter.

Once the Gravastar entered an area of space where matter was in lesser amount the pressure on the bubble would decrease therefore causing the matter inside (our universe) to contract or at least slow the expansion.

Thoughts anyone? B.L. of N.C.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

There are those who will argue otherwise, but I still don't think there's any definitive way to prove exactly how long the universe has existed. Although being able to measure the speed of light along with not detecting any matter past what we see does gives scientists the ability to narrow down a time-frame based on the position of the matter we see.

If the Gravastar theory is real, then a period of contracting and expanding, along with a forever recycling period of new stars and galaxies forming within it could mean the universe as we see it has been around for trillions of years for all we know.

It may not matter much to us earthlings anyway what is happening in the universe. In cosmic time, we may not be around much longer. A supernova is poised to go off in our backyard, possibly ending life on earth. We'll be just another big black hole in space.