IANAP, but as I understand it, local clusters will remain close together due to the stronger forces of attraction they have on each other. As these clusters constitute several galaxies, I assume groupings of atoms would also stick together.
Yep, there’s a sweet spot where gravity overtakes the expansion due to inverse square law. And of course, atoms and molecules are held together with forces that are stronger than gravity - at those distances, at least
I had the same thought.
Did we ever find out if expansion works faster in large areas of vacuum or did it turn out to be fairly uniform no matter the density of matter?
Still being figured out, recent measurements made the hubble tension worse and we’re currently trying to better understand how voids influence the movement of galaxies; one possible result which could be the discovery that the universe isn’t inflating at all (unlikely but credible enough to be investigated).
Uh, cosmology crisis tho