where is the end of space?

Question

did you ever think, or have thought how far can you go until you are stopped..does it just go on and on or does it stop somewhere, makes me wonder how big space really is, is earth a speck of salt and North the world is our universe..whats out there, maybe we should focus our attentions more on space exploration rather than fighting each other down here on earth..

Answer 1

I am very much in favor of your idea that we should not fight amongst ourselves but rather spend our time in working to better understand what we have and where we are.

Your question about the end limits of space has been answered many times here on Yahoo Answers. For some reason the question keeps coming up. I suppose that the reason for that is that most people cannot grasp the idea of something so fantastically huge as "space."

Let me give you a "for instance."

We are in a Solar System consisting of the Sun, nine planets, with an odd assortment of moons orbiting those planets. Our Solar System is located within the Milky Way Galaxy which contains almost 200 Billion suns just like ours. The Milky Way Galaxy is a spining disk of stars that measures roughly 150,000 Light Years across and 1,500 Light Years thick. That, mind you, is only our Milky Way Galaxy.

Beyond our Milky Way Galaxy there are tens of thousands of other galaxies (or more) which also contain millions and billions of other stars in each one. Some of the more distant galaxies that we can see are M87 and M104 which are located about 40,000,000 Light Years from the Milky Way.
Other galaxies are even farther away than that, but those particular ones are fairly easy to look for with a good telescope.

Using all techniques that are available to us, according to Ian Ridpath, author of ASTRONOMY, DK Publishing, NY, NY, we are at the center of an "observable ball" which measures 13.7 Billion Light Years in radius. The shape of that ball is only defined by our limits of ability to observe (see) any farther. Our equipment just fails to produce useable information at about that point. However, that is not the end, and there is no brick wall out there at that point.

So, to conclude this answer, I wish to have you take out paper and pen, and calculate out the number of miles in
13.7 Billion Light Years. Write that answser down and compare it, in your mind, to any distance you are casually familiar with. You will find that number to be so huge that you can't really deal with it, and than suddenly understand why most people just accept the idea that space is so big that it boggles the mind. For that reason I am going to call it "infinite." I cannot see any end to it, so it is bigger than anything I can measure or understand. Infinite is a good word to describe that kind of thing. Don't let people aregue with you about stuff like - nothing is infinite... What do they know? Remember, you cannot measure from here to a vacant point way out in space. You can only measure distance from here to "something" out there. So there are many, many things that we cannot see because of equipment limitations, and therefore we cannot measure the distances to them. So we call the distance infinite...(for now).

Answer 2

dv4unme,
OK, lets see that theory is true, and space does bend around itself. I like what you said, this is not an attack, I found what you said very interesting. These is just some interesting counterpoints. What is outside of the bend itself? What is outside of space? Is there an end of spatial dimension all together?

Let's just say that the universe and everything in it, including the space-time continuum, is all just one huge sphere. What is outside of the sphere? Just nothing, an invisible force that keeps a traveler on a merry-go-round without knowing it. What then, was the cause for space-time to simply stop, gravity? If so, still the question concerning the outside of the sphere of space-time. I know it can be easy to dismiss that and say there is no outside it does not exist. But, I personally find that hard to believe. It is hard for one to wrap their mind around that thought, if they really stop and think about that.



If there is an end to space-time, not just an end to matter in space, but an end to space itself, an end to empty space ?
If so, what caused space to just end ? Don't say gravity, that is an easy way out. Even with gravity considered, I can understand matter, but space itself, I don't know.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, doesn't Einstein's theory of general relativity, deal with how matter warps and curves space-time according to each piece of matter's complete properties of mass, it's size and density.
He talks about how mass warps and curves space-time. But not the nature of space-time itself, as for gravity causing it to be there.

I welcome any counterpoints to this from dv4unme or anyone else for that matter.

Answer 3

one theory is that space actually bends in on it's self and if you go straight forever you would end up where you started.