@MaDDUck
You asked Is the universe expanding or contracting?
The universe is explanding...
In 2003, humanity leaned that the universe is 13.7 billion years old.
Discovered by a small satellite named the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) that had been collecting data in an unusual Earth orbit.
Besides universe age, new data and analyses of the spots on the cosmic microwave background bolstered existing indications that the universe is composed predominantly of a strange and mysterious type of dark energy (73 percent). The remaining matter is only about 4 percent in familiar atoms, with the remaining 23 percent in a somewhat mysterious type of dark matter.
During that year, much cosmological research shifted from trying to find the parameters that define our universe to trying to use these parameters as a tool for understanding details of how our universe evolved...
http://mysite.freeserve.com/blobrana/news/darknews.htm :-)