open universe

noun Astronomy.

a model of the universe in which the universe expands forever because there is not enough mass to counteract the expansion by means of gravitational attraction.

Compare closed universe.

Origin:
1975–80

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Open universe is always a great word to know.

So is Sirius. Does it mean:

the Dog Star, the brightest-appearing star in the heavens, located in the constellation Canis Major

the obscuring of the light of the moon by the intervention of the earth between it and the sun, a lunar eclipse, or the obscuring of the light of the sun by the intervention of the moon between it and a point on the earth, a solar eclipse

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American Heritage

Science Dictionary

open universe
Model of the universe in which the curvature of space is flat or curved away from itself, entailing that the size of the universe is infinite. According to this model, gravity between objects is not able to stop or reverse the expansion of the universe, thus objects continue to move farther and farther apart as space moves outward. An object moving in a straight line in an open universe would never return to its starting point. According to current cosmological theories, the universe is open if it is insufficiently dense. Such a universe will never end, but will eventually become very cold and dark because stars gradually lose all of their energy. Compare closed universe. See Note at big bang.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

open universe definition

If there is not enough matter in the universe to exert a strong enough gravitational force to stop the universal expansion associated with the big bang, the universe is said to be open. (Compare closed universe and flat universe.)

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"With a single companion, I soon found my way to the church of Notre Dame.... The Catholic are the only churches which I have seen worth remembering, which are not almost wholly profane. I do not speak only of the rich and splendid like this, but of the humblest of them as well. Coming from the hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed aside the listed door of this church, and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. There sat one or two women who had stolen a moment from the concerns of the day, as they were passing; but, if there had been fifty people there, it would still have been the most solitary place imaginable. They did not look up at us, nor did one regard another.... I was impressed by the quiet, religious atmosphere of the place. It was a great cave in the midst of a city; and what were the altars and the tinsel but the sparkling stalactites, into which you entered in a moment, and where the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and profitable thought? Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays, hardly long enough for an airing, and then filled with a bustling congregation,—a church where the priest is the least part, where you do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be heard. I am not sure but this Catholic religion would be an admirable one if the priest were quite omitted. I think that I might go to church myself some Monday, if I lived in a city where there was such a one to go to.... As for the Protestant churches, here or elsewhere, they did not interest me, for it is only as caves that churches interest me at all, and in that respect they were inferior."

-Henry David Thoreau