Universe Expansion Funnel

  • Released Tuesday, September 20th, 2016
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:48PM
  • ID: 12314

Animated still image depicting the expansion history of the universe.

A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Missions

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Series

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