How many billion years ago was the big bang? What is the size of the universe at the moment in light years?

Answer 1

im no astrologimatoligist, but i don't think it was even 1 billion years ago

Answer 2

The Big Bang was 13.7 billion years ago. The error on this number is now about 150 million years, based on a variety of cosmological observations.

If "at the moment" you mean time zero, then no one knows. Time zero has physical properties (density, temperature) that are beyond any current theory of physics.

At any time after time zero, the size of the universe could be "infinite". We don't know. We also do not know when "early inflation" started and stopped, so we do not even know how our observable Universe, the Universe within our event horizon, evolved with time. We do know that the observable Universe is not the whole Universe. The Universe is likely to be at least 10^50 times bigger than the observable Universe (and perhaps infinite).

As a rough guess, our observable Universe (now some 40 billion lightyears across) was the size of an atomic nucleus at the start of early inflation, and blew up to the size of a basketball during the first 10^-30 seconds, give or take a few orders of magnitude.

Answer 3

The big bang was somewhere between 13 and 14 billion years ago. Maybe 13.7 as an estimate.

The size of the universe is still under debate. It depends a lot on what you believe the universe is. Some hold that it is infinite. We can see about 46.5 billion light years in all directions, so if the earth was at the centre of the universe it would be a sphere 93 billion light years across. But as we are almost certainly not at the centre of the universe it is probably bigger than that and it may not be a sphere.

Answer 4

As Elizabeth said, current thinking is that the Bang was 13.7 Billion years ago. As that is the age of the Universe, in size it appears to reach 13.7 billion light years away in all directions (we could not see anything that appears further away than that, as the light would not have had time to reach us yet.) So we're at the center of a bubble with a radius of 13.7 billion LY. The AGE of the cosmos defines the apparent SIZE of it, owing to the limited speed of light.

Thats the "observable" universe. There may be more beyond that we cannot see -- we just don't know. A cosmological theory called Inflation suggests that for a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, space itself expanded inconceivably fast -- much-much faster than light travels thru space. Space itself can expand faster than light travels thru space, that's not a relativity violation.

If true, as a result there may be much of the universe outside our observable bubble -- the light just hasn't reached us yet. It's possible our observable cosmos is like a germ on a flea on an elephant's body -- but no one knows.

Answer 5

The answer to this question can only be answered by billions of years ago. There is no way at present to say exactly when it occured. However, there are "Big Bangs" occuring as we speak in different parts of the universe. Light travels at 180,000 miles per second. The size of the universe is unknown. As many probes that are sent into space, there will be nobody alive to know if it reaches an end to the universe. We humans aren't that good in passing on accurate information from one generation to the next and one century to the next, etc.

Answer 6

the big bang was 15 billion years ago. The universe spreads at light speed, so it is now 30 billion light years across, 15 billion from the starting point in all dimensions

Answer 7

The Big Bang happened about 13.7 billion years ago.
We do not exactly know the size of the universe. Scientists are always finding galaxies and objects further and further away.

Answer 8

If the Big Bang was a correct theory without flaws. Than time at the begining was being borne at a zero reference frame.That would be the reference frame of observation.
However from the reference frame of the earth time appears as the frame of reference dictates.
What seems to be billions of years relative to earth. would be in the zero point of reference appear as just seconds.
Relativity offers many types of deviation from common observation and sense.
The size of the Universe in Units of light years is 15 billions light years;this equates to 1.46 x10^26 meters in the metric system of measurement.
If that distance is correct as the radius of the Universe , this value would indicate that the Universe is a space containment of a Mass of 2 x10^53 kilograms( this is the sum of all the Galaxies).
Hence space is not empty it contains a lot of galaxies.
If this mass is correct than the temperature before any complex mass structures came into being would be=1.93460466x10^93 degrees kelvin.So how many years ago was the creation of the Universe; it all depends where you are observing the "Time" from.
From our Creator's reference frame it was a very short time and a drop in a bucket relative to Eternity.See Bible ;1st chapter of Genesis.

Answer 9

Most scientists say the Big Bang started from a singular point, smaller than the period ending this sentence. Maybe even exponentially smaller than a period, considering our relative perception of size. But the Big Bang basicallly came from nothing. Amazing right? If it's true that is...

Answer 10

...ummm does it really matter...? I mean will it put some "bling" in your bank account...? some bread for your butter...?