[wbarmy]

Universe is expanding 76.5 kilometers per second faster every 3.26 million light-years.

And this is where the stupid comes up in my mind. How is the "universe" still accelerating from th Big Bang? I understand the energy involved pushed it very hard and fast in the beginning, but it had to achieve a constant rate at some point. Nothing can accelerate unless it is being given energy from somehwere.

[Red Badger]

As the ‘mass’ of the universe gets further and further away from the ‘center’ of the Big Bang, it’s attraction to other parts of the mass gets weaker and weaker.

Gravity gets ‘diluted’, as it were.

So the farther the masses on the leading edge of the Universe get, there is less gravity holding them back............

[norwaypinesavage]

"Universe is expanding 76.5 kilometers per second faster every 3.26 million light-years."

Since "3.26 million light years is a distance, using terms we're more familiar with, this is like saying it's expanding 76 miles an hour faster every three million miles away that it is. This means that the farther away it is, the faster it's accelerating. This means the farther away it is, the faster it dims. Therefore, we'll never be able to see things more distant.

This may simply be the way that it is, but it's not what we normally consider an acceleration to be. A normal acceleration is measured in miles per hour per hour, not miles per hour per mile. That, at least gives us some hope of ever seeing distant objects which will not dim so quickly.