Contracting Case

It is easier to predict the future of a contracting universe than the expanding universe.

If the universe contracts, the Cosmic Background Radiation(CBR) affects the future of the universe enormously. CBR works inversely proportional to the universe's volume. For example, if the universe's volume became half, then CBR would double, and if the universe's volume became a quarter, then CBR would become 4 times as large.

The temperature of the present CBR is 3K, so, for instance, if the size of the universe decreased to one hundredth of its original size, the temperature would become 300K (27 degrees Celsius), and the universe would become as warm as daytime. Furthermore, if the universe contracted to one twentieth of that size, the temperature would become 6000K. By then, the universe would glow as bright as the sun, the galaxies would collide with each other, and the stars would begin to melt because of the strong radiation. In this way, the universe would continue contracting and in the end, it would gather to one point just like the universe in its early stage. When the universe contracts to one point, that condition is named the big crunch. There are no theories to postulate what would happen to the universe after reaching the big crunch.

List of Related Links

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• Temperature of CBR? - How do astronomers measure the temperature of the cosmic background radiation without using a thermometer? (Change and Delete)
• CBR from every direction? - If the cosmic background radiation comes from everywhere in space does that mean it has no source? (Change and Delete)
• Missing mass be a CBR? - Could some of the 'missing mass' in the universe be in the cosmic background radiation itself? (Change and Delete)
• COBE Educational Resources - Students, educators and others interested in NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission or cosmology can find information here. (Change and Delete)
• Theories of the early universe - The great excitement of modern cosmology comes from the confrontation of theoretical ideas with a rapidly growing body of data. (Change and Delete)
• The Web page of Planck - Planck is designed to image the anisotropies of the Cosmic Background Radiation Field over the whole sky. (Change and Delete)
• Cosmic Microwave Background - CMB is the remnant thermal radiation left over after the high-temperatures of the Big Bang. (Change and Delete)

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