IS THERE LIFE ELSEWHERE ? /EXPANDING UNIVERSE

                          IS THERE LIFE ELSEWHERE ?

1960 First SETI experiment examined two stars
1992 NASA begins High Resolution Microwave Survey , Seeking short radio waves from like the sun
1998 Astronomers begin search for pulses of laser light
1393 congress ends NIASA's SETI funding
2008 Phoenix mission finds ice on Mars , hence  the possibility of water supporting life 

2006 Studies of Jupiter ' s moon Europa investigate possible biosphere beneath ice

EXPANDING UNIVERSE 

 AS galaxies race away from each other, the move not through but with space, f space itself is expanding. The image oft S used is a loaf of raisin bread. As the dough rises, the raisins (representing objects space, such as galaxies) move away from each other and so does the dough hey rest in. Expansion is a property  of the universe as a whole and not just of galaxies .

Edwin Hubble first discovered that the universe is expanding in 1929. In the. decades since then, astronomers have turned their attention to the implications of this finding. It countered prevailing ideas about the future of the future of the  universe, presumed to be a slowing down due to the pull of gravity from all its matter, which would result finally in a collapse that some termed t "big crunch." With Hubble's finding, astronomers  had to grapple with the implications of a universe that is not only expanding but accelerating as it goes many astronomers believe the acceleration  tied to dark energy, a type en of antigravity force radiating from deep space. The nature of dark energy, about in which we know very little, might determine the fate of the universe. If dark energy is stable, the universe might continue to expand and accelerate forever. If it is unstable, the universe could ultimately be pulled om ally apart in a scenario  dubbed the "big the rip." If dark energy  has the capacity to change, it could  gradually decelerate and become an attractive force that no- contracts the universe in an implosion  like a big crunch.