Comment - This is the latest in a series of discoveries over the past couple of years that have completely revolutionized what we know (and don't know) about the Universe. It's really one of the astonishing scientific accomplishments of the past hundred years!

Here is why the findings are so mind-boggling: For all of my life, the accepted wisdom was that the Universe started, somehow, with a "Big Bang" (maybe God pushed the "start button"); it will expand for billions of year; the expansion will slow, then reverse; eventually everything will rush back together in a "Big Crunch". (No one knew what was supposed to happen after the Big Crunch. Perhaps the Universe would rebound in another Big Bang.)

In other words, you could visualize the Universe as kind of like an expanding balloon. It will expand just so far, then the air will leak out and the balloon will shrink.

This theory had a lot of appeal. For one thing, it had symmetry; humans like stories with a beginning and an end. Humans are born and die. Likewise, the Universe started with a Big Bang (was born) and will end with a Big Crunch (dies).

Another reason people liked this theory is that it avoided having to deal with the concept of infinity. With Big Bang/Big Crunch, scientists could imagine that our Universe had a finite life. It started and will end and you didn't really have to deal with what came before or what comes after.

But the findings of the past couple years verify a radically different vision. The Big Bang survives (God still pushes the start button) but astronomers have found that the Universe, instead of expanding and then contracting, is expanding at a faster and faster rate every year. Some mysterious force is accelerating the expansion of the Universe. It will never slow down and contract. Ever.

Philosophically, this is pretty mind-boggling. Remember our prayers about "forever and ever, Amen"? It's a fact - the Universe really is forever and ever. This is making scientists extremely uncomfortable. It implies that it is impossible, even in theory, for humans to ever discover the ultimate fate of the Universe.

As if that wasn't mysterious enough - dig this:

From the article: "The data also have enabled scientists to produce the most exact calculation ever of what the cosmos is made of today. It turns out that only 4 percent of the universe is made up of atoms with known forces such as electromagnetism and gravity, the ordinary stuff that makes people, potatoes, porcelain and everything else that humans know. Twenty-three percent of the universe is made from mysterious unseen material dubbed "dark matter" because scientists know so little about it. The remainder -- 73 percent -- is made up of yet another poorly understood force called "dark energy." "I was very skeptical of this concoction," said John Bahcall, a leading astrophysicist from Princeton University. "But the results have really convinced me. This is the only conclusion one can come to, strange as it is. It's fantasy, but you know it's fantasy turned real. It's unbelievable but true."

So, in conclusion, it appears that we have no idea how the Universe will end up, and on top of that, we don't have the slightest idea what 96 percent of the Universe is made of. Talk about making you feel humble...

One last note. With all the bashing of NASA this week, it's worth mentioning that these discoveries were made using well-designed and cheap (at least, cheap compared to the Shuttle and the Space Station) unmanned space probes.

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11:17:53 AM