Thread: Force of Universe Expansion vs Force of gravity

I've been wondering whether the forces of gravity actually exceed that of the forces causing the universe expansion. I'll try to claify. If the universe is expanding at extremely high rate per second, how does gravity hold our solar system together? Is the force of gravity stronger that that of the mighty expansion of the universe? It seems to me the earth, planets, laws of gravity would all be blown away and we'd be drifting (or dead) by being flung into space further, far apart from what holds us stablely by gravity here. Make sense? Again, I'm newbie just having questions in my head, but want to understand more.

thx!

The force of gravity is stronger over short ranges, and by short I mean a few to a few hundred lightyears. Beyond that, expansion starts to matter. Although, you might want to look up The Big Rip. If the expansion continues to accelerate, it'll overtake gravity at smaller and smaller scales until the galaxy falls apart, then the solar system, then the planets and stars, then atoms. It weird to think about, but at the point when the solar system starts to fall apart, the universe will be expanding fast enough that light from the sun can't reach Earth anymore.