the universe......?

Question

what is beyond the solar system, the galaxy etc....?
what do you think is beyond?
a blank empty space? if so it has to stop somewhere and if it does what is beyond that?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, most laymen have an erroneous view of our universe stemming from the whole "big bang" concept. They think of the big bang as an explosion of matter & energy into space from some central point, but this is incorrect. The big bang was actually an explosion OF space, _not_ of stuff INTO space.

As such, there is no "beyond the edge of the universe" because there is no edge to the universe. ANY point in the universe "looks" like it could be the center, because at every point space is expanding, pushing matter farther & farther apart. The initial singularity that was the start of our universe, expanded to become all of space. To answer your question about what's "beyond" space, the term really doesn't have any meaning. It's like asking what's north of the north pole: nothing.

The universe, if you could travel (much) faster than light, likely loops around itself. Like travelling on the surface of a globe, no matter what direction you set out in you'd eventually come back to where you started. However, because we CAN'T travel FTL (sorry, sci-fi fans), and because the universe is expanding at the rate it is, the reality is if you set out in one direction, you'd just keep travelling through more space. As the universe continued to expand over the eons you'd notice the galaxies you pass becoming fewer and fewer, until eventually, many trillions of years into the future, you'd just be travelling through dark, empty space.

Hope this helps. The first link below is an interesting future timetable of our universe. The second is a very good and readable book that could probably explain better than I could about the big bang & origins of our universe.

Answer 2

Beyond the Solar system is the inter-galactic space and then the Galaxy (The Milky Way) beyond that is the inter-galactic group space and then the local group of galaxies, beyond that the rest of the universe and beyond that it is impossible to say because nothing can travel faster than light and in order to "see" what is beyond the edge of the universe you would need to out-run the light wave that is expanding outward there and this is impossible, therefore no one can say what lies beyond the universe. Now as to your statement "It has to stop somewhere", WHY? to make this statement is equally as fallacious as to say, "It has to go on". Why must either statement be true?

Answer 3

You say it yourself: ... and if it does what is beyond that?

It's like numbers. No matter how big a number you can come up with, I can add one. It does NOT have to stop.

Suppose there would be a border. And suppose something would be behind that border. Don't ask what it is, but ask where it ends. You would be looking for yet another border.

My view: the universe does have a size, but when we try to look at it, we can't see the "end". And when we are able to look further, the "end" moves. The universe stays always ahead of us, almost as if we define it ourselves.

Answer 4

its a very very big empty space , scattered with solar systems and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, each one separated by extremely big empty space. but thats how the universe was formed.
by example, the next star to us is proxima centauri, imagine , its as far as 40 trillion kms, before that there's nothing else next to us in a sphere of that radius.
but nevertheless its almost empty, theres still a lot of matter existing in the universe to take account of, why bother beyond? jejeje

Answer 5

Since we are finite ourselves, we have trouble conceiving something infinite. "There needs to be a beginning and end damn it! ". I think beyond the furthest point that matter has spread is nothing. Dark, empty, space.

I dont think we will ever know. We use telescopes that use objects in space as lenses ( gravitational lensing ) and still cant see far enough. The universe has grown to far to see beyond.

Answer 6

That's a question we have all asked. The main problem is humans need to define a border; Something that is the outter limit of the universe. Something that we could call "the end of the universe" and then someone asks "well what's beyond that?". The human mind needs to define things, we are not smart enough to imagine a dimension with utterly no limit, it's impossible.There are concepts in this universe our minds simply cannot begin to comprehend, and that's where religion comes in.

Answer 7

well, not even hubble could see beyond the faraway star....

but i think it MIGHT be an empty space at some point. imagine, at this point the universe seems limitless. but eventually we'll get cramped together again (this will be the size of a single planet or smaller, then, what will surround it? empty space!) and start another big bang.

Answer 8

The universe is ridiculously massive, who knows. I think the universe may be both finite and infinite and loop into itself, like if you kept going from the earth you'd eventually reach the earth again.

Answer 9

I think that the universe is infinite...it goes on so much farther than our finite human minds can even comprehend. They say that there are hundreds of BILLONS of galaxies...maybe at the "end" of the entire universe you find God.

Answer 10

Maybe the universe is round just like the Earth, but much bigger.