how big is the universe?

Question

hmmm...how big?

Answer 1

This information was taken from a publication in 1985--I am referring to it concerning the statistics! Imagine the stats at present?

*** ce chap. 9 pp. 116-118 Our Awesome Universe ***

Awesome Size

4 In recent centuries astronomers who scanned the heavens with early telescopes noticed some fuzzy, cloudlike formations. They assumed that these were nearby clouds of gases. But in the 1920’s, as larger, more powerful telescopes came into use, these “gases” were found to be something far more immense and significant: galaxies.

5 A galaxy is a vast group of stars, gas and other material rotating around a central nucleus. Galaxies have been called island universes, for each one of them is in itself like a universe. For example, consider the galaxy we live in, which is called the Milky Way. Our solar system, that is the sun and the earth and other planets with their moons, is part of this galaxy. But it is only a very tiny part, for our Milky Way galaxy contains over 100 billion stars! Some scientists estimate at least 200 to 400 billion. And one science editor even stated: “There could be as many as five to ten trillion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.”2

6 The diameter of our galaxy spans so vast a distance that if you could travel as fast as the speed of light (186,282 miles a second) it would take you 100,000 years to cross it! How many miles is that? Well, since light travels about six trillion (6,000,000,000,000) miles in a year, multiply that by 100,000 and you have the answer: our Milky Way galaxy is about 600 quadrillion (600,000,000,000,000,000) miles in diameter! The average distance between stars within the galaxy is said to be about six light-years, or about 36 trillion miles.

7 It is almost impossible for the human mind to comprehend such size and distance. And yet, our galaxy is just the beginning of what is in outer space! There is something even more staggering. It is this: So many galaxies have now been detected that it has been said they “are as common as blades of grass in a meadow.”3 About ten billion galaxies are in the observable universe! But there are many more beyond the range of today’s telescopes. Some astronomers estimate that there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe! And each galaxy may contain hundreds of billions of stars!"

--This next stat is a guesstimat in my estimation:

--From the "National Geographic" web page:
Massive "Big Baby" Galaxy Found in Distant Quadrant of Space
... The galaxy represents a time when the universe was just 800 million years old.
Scientists place the universe's age at around 14 billion years. ...
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0928_050928_baby_galaxy.html

--Why I feel it is a guess is because the scientists estimate the earth's age between 4-5 billion years ago, which seems reasonable!
--BUT 15 billions years for the universe especially if one believes in the existence of the Eternal God of the Bible--that seems extremely short sighted!
--They have not found any end to the universe--SO THEN how can the scientists of any worth--really put a limiting age on the universe?

--AND who knows how uniquely expansive God made all things in the cosmos?
--It should be interesting to see what their further open research will reveal. I'm sure it will be quite a shock for their finite minds, especially if they do not take God into consideration?

--SORRY about the info on the age, for some reason I thought that was part of your question!

Answer 2

For a long time it was thought the diameter of the universe was about 27 billion light years.

However, more recent estimates that take into account modern findings in big bang/inflation theory say it's about 150-160 billion light years in diameter.

Is that estimate correct? Maybe, maybe not. However, there is one thing we do know...and that is it's pretty damn big either way ;) Estimates have progressively gotten larger over the yeras, so it's likely that if this estimate is also incorrect than the universe is even larger than that.


BUT, it is wise to note that this measurement is of the entire universe, and is a lower bound. This means that it could very well be much larger than that, and this also doesn't tell us about the visible universe. Just because the universe itself is 160 billion light years across does not mean what is actually visible (to us) extends that far.

Answer 3

What we see today is 14.5 billion years old (hence the almost 30 billion light year diameter), but the universe is expanding at rates up to the speed of light so it has travelled outward from that point, but we won't see it for years and years.

So in reality the universe can theortically be millions of times larger than 30 billion light years.

If we were to take a worm hole to the furthest of stars position today as seen from Earth, they would be 14.5 billion light years further than they are now.

So the Universe is easily 60 billion light years across if not larger.

Answer 4

The Universe is infinite ......... meaning there`s no beginning and no end . You get all kinds of geniuses telling you it`s x amount of trillions of years in diameter , but they always fail to explain what`s at those limits . A brick wall ? A barbed wire fence ? A cliff you`d fall off of if you went further ?

Simply because humans cannot comprehend infinity does NOT mean it`s not a fact .

Answer 5

Some advanced theories speculate that the universe is either very large (I don't have the exact number, the numbers others in this question are throwing around are as good as any) or very tiny (like sub-plank size [that's smaller than an electron]). According to relativity, either works.

Answer 6

Probably so big that if you took an ant and had it magically been able to walk to pluto and back around 1000 times that would be the amount of time it would take us to get to the edge of the universe which is around

1,000,000 (1 Million) Googolplex's (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) (10^100)

I'm sure the universe is not even that many seconds old.

Answer 7

outside a certain distance, there is no signal that could reach us, so its nor really meaningful to say whether there is anything further than that or not ... except I choose to believe that as neutrinos etc shoot off into the far distance, the "universe" expands to accommodate them ... the alternative would be to assume that some other process we dont know about suddenly springs up to deal with them, which is inelegant and inefficient.

Answer 8

Hi. About 27 billion light years in diameter.

Answer 9

Considering that it's roughly 14 billion yrs old, the first post is most likely correct.

Answer 10

he's talking about the Universe not the Galaxy it's big so big in fact that we don't actually know the size of it