Is the Earth the centre of the Universe?

Question

If we can travel an infinite distance away from the Earth in one direction, and an infinite distance in the opposite direction, surely until we have a defined limit to the Universe as we know it, the Earth is the in the centre (as we know it). What do you think?

Valid points about other planets being also the centre, and while i admit it is unlikely, no other planets have the voice to claim it themselves.

Answer 1

This is an interesting point, from your theory you would seem right, that is assuming the 'universe' is round. But what if it was a funny wonky shape, where's the middle of that?How do we know the 'universe' is round anyway? where are the edges? Are there edges? What's at the edges? What's beyond the edges? Oh I really want to know! I'd love to find out.

Answer 2

If you use that kind of logic, then everything in the universe is the center of the universe. If you don't count dark matter as part of our universe or multiverse, then it is highly unlikely that we are the center because then the universe or multiverse isn't infinite but only stretches as far as the "big bang" expanded.
I just know our solar system is far on the edge of the Milky Way.

I'm sure there are other planets in the universe which have the voice to claim the center for themselves. That's a point for another question and one that has been asked numerous times; ARE WE ALONE?

Answer 3

There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a "Big Bang" about 14 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion. It is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualised as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space. The whole universe itself is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced that he had measured the speed of galaxies at different distances away and had discovered that the further they were away from us the faster they were receding. This seems to suggest that we are at the centre of the expanding universe, but it must be remembered that motion is relative. If the universe is expanding uniformly according to Hubble's law it will appear to do so from any galaxy.

If we see a galaxy B moving away from us at 10,000 km/s, an alien in galaxy B will see our galaxy A moving away from it at 10,000 km/s in the opposite direction. If there is another galaxy C twice us far away in the same direction as B we will see it moving at 20,000 km/s and the alien will see it moving at 10,000 km/s.

A B C
from A 0km/s 10,000km/s 20,000km/s
from B -10,000km/s 0km/s 10,000km/s


So, from the point of view of the alien at B everything is expanding away from it, which ever direction it looks in, just the same as it does for us.

Answer 4

No the universe is infinite and complex, the hemiuniverse centre is the big bang's place and the universe's centre is no where so it can be anywhere, although the hemi part of the universe of what we are in is 15 MLY across and we are in it right now and even if it expands we will still be in it.
Although the universe is infinite.
People like me try to work it out but no brain on this Earth can work out all of this brane of the multiverse, the universe.

Answer 5

Not only is the Earth at the very center of the universe, it also is a non rotating body. The Sun and the stars are all swirling around our wrelm creating the illusion that we are spinning on an axis, which would be impossible because if we were the ocean currents would quickly cover the land and we'd see clouds racing overhead. You would be able to fly from California to Hawaii in just four hours by simply hovering in a helicopter if the Earth were spinning. If you jumped just two feet off the ground you'd land hundreds of yards to the west when you landed.

Answer 6

What Eddurd said was correct. There is no centre. The universe is a 4D hyper cube and we are only on its surface in 3D. An analogy is that of a balloon. Imagine the space that we are in is like the fabric of the balloon in 2D. So all the galaxies and planets will be resting on this fabric.

When we expand the balloon, each and every point move away from a point on the balloon. So the observer on this point will think all the points and stars will seem to move away from him and he thinks he is in the centre. But he is not.

Don't forget, the universe is expanding in 4D and the plamets amd stars are resting on its 3D surface.

Hope you understand what I wrote.

Answer 7

It would be odd (strange) if one minor planet in one minor star system on the edge of one of the spiral arms of an average galaxy (our milky way) in a universe with billions of galaxies and trillions of planets were the "center" of the universe. The universe, for one thing, would have to be finite, and then earth would have to be at the center (radius) of the sphere, assuming it is a sphere.

I don't think so. Copernicus showed 600 years ago that earth could not be the center. As a metaphor, for a self-centered species of animal, it's OK to think that way, I suppose, but as a physical fact--no.

Answer 8

On January 7th 1610 Galileo Galilei trained his telescope on Jupiter and discovered it had 4 moons that orbited it (later named Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto) and thereby proved that the earth was not the centre of the solar system as Ptolemy had thought.

45 years later in March 1655 the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered that Saturn has a moon orbiting it too, which was later named Titan.

IT IS A LITTLE LATE IN THE DAY TO TRY AND RESURRECT THE PTOLEMAIC MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE!

Answer 9

We have no idea about the actual size of the universe or number of systems. The Earth can only be the centre from our own self centered view!

Answer 10

Nope. That means that all other planets are in the centre too. Actually, it's the Sun. And there is a definde limit to the Universe, but it's expanding so fast, we can't catch up with it, no matter how hard we try.

Answer 11

We are all travelling away from the place where the big bang occurred, which should have been the center of the universe. If we were at the center of the universe, everything would be travelling away from us, and it's not, so no. We're still just in an unfashionable spiral of a nondescript galaxy.