Episode 10 of Cosmos, The Edge of Forever, expands its view to the vast structures of the galaxies, building nicely from our previous episode, "The Lives of the Stars." It also addresses the Big Questions of the cosmos: "where does it all come from?" and "where is it all going?". The episode features several poetic and haunting hypotheses regarding both, but suffers from the astonishing scientific progress in cosmology over the intervening 30 years. Most of these hypotheses turned out to be wrong, or at least irrelevant.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos Update at the end of the special edition DVD acknowledges this, though the Update itself suffers from the same problem, having been recorded in the comparatively primeval period of cosmological understanding that was 1990. Two major events occurred which revolutionized (not too strong a word, I think) the field of cosmology since then: NASA's WMAP spacecraft and the discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating and the implication of the dark energy driving it.

WMAP measured the cosmic microwave background radiation in unprecedented detail. Careful analysis of these data led astrophysicists to the conclusion that the universe's overall geometry is flat. This implies an open cosmos (i.e. infinite), not closed, so goodbye to the hypotheses that we're living inside of a black hole or a subatomic particle in some larger universe.

The existence of Dark Energy—whatever it is—rules out a big crunch; there is not enough mass to stop the expansion of the universe. There is no Hindu-like cycle of cosmic death and rebirth. Our eventual fate is the proverbial whimpering out of existence; a frigid, featureless darkness awaits us at the end of all things.

Don't believe me? Ask Dr. Brian Cox: