Where are we located in the universe? Towards the center or at the edges?

Answer 1

The Universe is infinite, therefore it has no edge and no center.

Answer 2

I don't think anyone knows. Astronomers are able to receive light waves from distant galaxies but the light started on its journey 12 billion light years ago. So they aren't seeing galaxies from a distance. They are seeing them as they appeared 12 billion years ago. They believe that the Big Bang occurred about 15 billion years ago so what they are seeing they believe to be the early formation of galaxies. I don't believe the Universe is infinite as others have said. It had a beginning so it must have an end. The light from 12 billion years ago started 8 billion years before the Earth was even beginning to form. So I think I can be pretty confident, that since we don't have the slightest idea where any edge of the Universe is and we just got here yesterday on a cosmic time scale, there is currently no way for us to be able to say where we are in the Universe. All we can say is that we are in it and that's about it. Scientists have recently had to admit that they only know about 6% of what the Universe is made of. According to their own words the Universe is made up of about 6% normal matter and the rest they have no idea. So they are inventing things like Dark Energy and Dark Matter that makes up the rest of the Universe. I think that's a little too convenient being able to say that 94% of the Universe is made of things which cannot be observed or detected in any possible way. I think they are having a difficult time accepting that they know a lot less about the Universe than they thought. I hope you like this info. As you can tell I watch the Science channel quite a bit. Probably too much.

Answer 3

Nobody can tell you exactly where we're placed in the universe, and I'll tell you why:

We only know about what we can see. There's just no other way of telling what's out there other than light... nothing else reaches us that we can sense. And light doesn't travel infinitely fast, it travels (logically enough) at the speed of light.

So if we give a particular photon an amount of time equal to the entire history of the universe (which is currently thought to be about 14 billion years), that means we only know about what's happening within 14 billion light-years of us in any direction. Which you might expect to be more than enough space.

But it's not.

The universe is bigger than 28 billion light-years across. Some theories hold that it's more than 150 billion light-years in diameter. So we can really only see a small section of what's out there.

Now, I can guess what you're thinking... how can the universe be bigger than the distance light can travel if nothing can travel faster than light? Go ahead. It's a normal question. There's a simple answer to this: NOTHING -can- travel faster than light. Which is to say that when space itself is expanding, it can make things seem to be moving much faster or slower than they really are.

This is why EVERYTHING that's far away is red-shifted when we look it - space is stretching. And it's carrying things like photons with it, so it's like a fish swimming upstream.

To make matters worse, there may be a fourth-dimentional curvature to the universe. Current experiments suggest flatness or close to it... but if it's not flat then it possible that (like on a circle or a sphere) if you travel far enough in one direction then you end up back where you started. Or in other words that no 'edges' even exist in the universe.

So nobody really knows exactly where we are. Just that stuff seems to be in all directions when we look, so we don't seem to be closer than 14 billion light years to an edge (if there is one). That's about all anyone can say for sure!

Answer 4

The universe has no edges, it is... like a balloon being blown up. Everything is moving away from each other, being stretched out... there are no edges. It's sort of that shape, too, I think. Or at least, that's what I got from reading Poetry of the Universe by Robert Osserman. It's a good book, it'll tell you all about it.

Answer 5

There is no center or edge of the universe--as far as science knows. I know this sounds like a contradiction. There is such a thing as the center or edge of a galaxy ( Earth is about two thirds from the center).

Answer 6

It could be said that we are at the very CENTRE of the universe. Actually, no matter where you are, you will always be in the centre. The universe itself has no true form. It has limits, but no edge. It had a beginning (in time)... but no end. If you were to leave in a spacecraft and travel in a straight line for a looong time, you would eventually end up back on Earth.

Answer 7

We (our solar system), and all other solar systems in the galaxy are actually moving so we never have a fixed location in the universe. On top of our solar system moving, our galaxy is moving also. In a few million or billion years we'll eventually run into and combine with the Andromedia galaxy.

Answer 8

the universe isnt infinate actually, aparently there's scientific reason to suggest that the universe is in fact sphere shaped and that it is expanding, although what it is expanding into is beyond me!
However, im pretty sure that we dont know the exact location of every single galaxy in the universe and therefore dont have the knowledge to say where abouts we are within it

Answer 9

Way out at the edge!

Answer 10

I don't think anybody knows, including astronauts. Because astronauts haven't gone so far yet. But the universe is very very big. Well, if I am not wrong. Google it.