Second Result

Another question and answer I found on yahoo answers was:

Is the universe really endless and if not, what comes after it?

The best answer was that the universe is not endless, it is finite, but it is constantly expanding. Edwin Hubble was the first to make this hypothesis. He noted that galaxies were flying away from each other deeper into space. Here is the best way to visualize this. Imagine that there is a balloon filled with water and it is tied up. There is a person by a ledge, holding the balloon, and then drops it to the ground. What happens? It pops. What happens to the water? It spreads in all directions away from the balloon. Now imagine it from the point in which the balloon first makes contact with the ground to the point where all the water is out of it, except in reverse. The water appears to be going back inside the balloon, and is being condensed to a bunch of collected water. Now visualize the universe right after the big bang. All the matter is packed up in a ball and then... BAM! Everything spreads outwards, but in order for it to move, the universe must get larger, or expand. So while the universe expands, galaxies are getting farther and farther away from the center. As for the universe's end, well thats a hard subject to answer but there are many theories to it. Some people think that all matter will be sucked in by a massive black hole, but the universe will continue to expand forever. Some say that the black hole will consume the universe, taking everthing back to the singularity, and then it starts again. Others think that gravity will overcome all other forces, and pull the universe, and everything in it, back into a singularity again. This particular scenario is known as the "Big Crunch."