Universe Thought Likely To Blow Up

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31658, 19 April 1968, Page 13

Universe Thought Likely To Blow Up

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 18. United States Navy researchers claim to have evidence that the universe is a curved, closed system snd therefore inexorably doomed to fiery destruction some 10,000 million years from now. the Associated Press reports. They said the new findings —gleaned from the flight of an Aerobee rocket appear to provide a definite answer to a great cosmological question that has plagued scientists for generations. Will the now-exoanding universe, with its millions of star-filled galaxies, grow forever—or is it a closed system

whose expansion will gradually slow to a stop, with catastrophic results? Dr Richard Henry, of the Naval Research Laboratory, who reported the findings yesterday on behalf of a fiveman research team, said the rocket-gathered evidence indicated strongly that the universe was closed. He said such a system would fall inward until all the galaxies condensed again to one great fireball of matter and radiation. Dr Henry, who is 28. a research fellow supported by the National Science Foundation, reported to a snecial symposium marking the dedication of the new Hulbert centre i for Space Research.