Does anyone actually know where Space is?

Question

Its always puzzled me as to where actually space ends or if it does, can it go infinatly on and on forever.

i mean right now I am in my house, my house is in florida, Florida is in the U.S. The U.S. is in the planet Earth and Earth is in Space, so where is space, Surely it cant, NOT END.
Anyway guys, let me know (and please no God answers) Scientific if possible

Ok LindaJune, but if space is expanding then it has to have a size to expand like a stretched rubber band or a sponge after its been squeezed that must mean there is an end or a side, or a beginning

Answer 1

So, I cant explain the whole thing to you... I recommend the book:

The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawkings.

It's a long/thick book, but I got it on CD from the library, and it's very intriguing to listen to. Should give you an expanded idea of this crazy world we're in.
It was written for the lamen, but still gets pretty heavy & heady into the details of our universe.

Apparently space is pear shaped :D

Answer 2

Four dimensional space is pretty hard to wrap your mind around, but spacetime is what space is. It had a beginning, currently estimated at 13.7 billion years ago. Time unfurled along with the 3 physical dimensions. String theory suggests that 7 other dimensions also unwound from a pre-universe scalar field of potential energy, but curled up really small, much smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is these extra dimensions that determine the property of strings vibrating through them and the energy translates into quark, electron, or photon, baryonic matter and energy that continues to expand in the spacetime of its own creation.

Hope that was scientific enough.

Answer 3

The existence of dark matter is the evidence of an expanding universe!

Not only is there new evidence indicating the universe is expanding, but that this expansion is *accelerating*. This has come with confirmations from Type Ia Supernovae data.

Remember Einstein's general theory of relativity - which one could say approaches the status of a 'basic law of physics'. In this case, the existence of a negative pressure is consistent with general relativity's allowance for a "repulsive gravity" - since any negative pressure has associated with it gravity that repels rather than attracts.

This is the primary feature of dark energy. That the matter affected is being mutually repelled - in total contradiction to the normal behavior of (attractive) gravitation- and this repulsion is *accelerating the expansion of the cosmos*.

Hence, what one actually has is the furthest thing from "pulling together"!

By the time of the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite measurements in the early 1990s, it was estimated that nearly 97% of the matter in the cosmos was 'dark'. (E.g. not visible by optical telescope only by gravitational effects on nearby objects). Dark energy was not yet even on the radar.

The Boomerang and MAXIMA UV measurements that deal with type Ia supernovae changed all that. It also caused a re-ordering of the respective contributions of visible and dark matter, and dark energy.

More recent assessments - based on the type Ia data noted earlier, disclose an assay:

7% - ordinary visible matter

and

93% - dark component, of which:

- 70% is DARK (vacuum) energy and
- 23% is dark matter

So, bottom line from all this, not only is the universe "really expanding" but it is evidently accelerating in that expansion!

Answer 4

Hello and welcome to the real world. I see you are having a problem looking at Outer Space in terms of things that you have been taught and have experienced on Earth... Well, to learn about Outer Space you have to wear a different set of rules and measurements than Earthbound folks normally use.

Everything you said about where you live was good, but you stopped short of going out into space with the words... Earth is within a Solar System dominated by our star, the Sun. All of the planets with their associated moons orbit around our central star.

Our star is one of more than 200 Billion other stars within the Milky Way Galaxy which is a disk shaped configuration 1500 Light Years in diameter and 1.5 Light Years Thick. Each of those other stars could have from 0 to 10 (or more) planets orbiting around it along with their associated moons.

Now, get ready...Beyond our Galaxy, there are thousands and thousands of other galaxies and each one of those also contains billions of stars in it. And, yes, each one of those stars could have from 0 to 10 (or more) planets orbiting around it with their own moons.

So space is enormously vast, probably beyond anything you have ever considered before...

Placed into perspective, scientists and astronomers can presenetly see out into space with their most sophisticated optical and radio telescope equipment to a "seeable" distance of 40 Billion Light Years in every direction from Earth. That distance is the technical limit of the equipment we have. Beyond that we just don't get any useable data from the equipment, so, it is not the end of space, or anything...We just can't see out any farther than that. Maybe in years to come a new technique will be developed to extend that out to say 60 Billion Light Years or so...Who knows?

The point is that 40 Billion Light Years in every possible direction is a fantasticly huge distance, and that is not the end of outer space... Try to write down how big a distance that is in MILES. Maybe then you will become a believer.

Now for the kicker...Everything in space is moving away from some central point, and has been doing so for eons of time. And, you have never heard of any star or galaxy bouncing off of the edge or the side of space have you??? Probably not, because there isn't one. It is vast beyond your wildest imagination. Silly people ask, well, what is beyond that? Come on... Do they thing that anyone knows for sure? No person has ever been there. No person is ever going there. And, if they ever did, an EMail to them via radio would take 40 Billion Years to reach them, and 40 Billion More Years for an answer to come back. Heck, the Sun is forecast to expand to immense size as its hydrogen supply becomes exhausted in 5 billion years, so our edge of space traveler is really of little consequence anyhow. We will all be burned to a crisp long before the long range space traveler gets very far out there.

Infinity? I just don't know...But 40 Billion Light Years is kind of close to it... might as well be infinity as far as I am concerned.

Answer 5

You are in space right now. So is everything in the universe. Space is everywhere, and vast beyond comprehension, though not infinite. As for what is 'outside' the universe, that is something we cannot know. If there were a way to travel to the edge of the expanding universe, and go beyond it, all of the scientific constants we are familiar with, such as speed of light, gravitational constant, planck length, time itself, would break down completely. I would imagine that if you did so, you and your vessel would simply cease to exist, I don't know how it could be otherwise. In a sense, there is no 'outside' to the universe.

Answer 6

Hello and welcome to the real world. I see you are having a problem looking at Outer Space in terms of things that you have been taught and have experienced on Earth... Well, to learn about Outer Space you have to wear a different set of rules and measurements than Earthbound folks normally use.

Everything you said about where you live was good, but you stopped short of going out into space with the words... Earth is within a Solar System dominated by our star, the Sun. All of the planets with their associated moons orbit around our central star.

Our star is one of more than 200 Billion other stars within the Milky Way Galaxy which is a disk shaped configuration 1500 Light Years in diameter and 1.5 Light Years Thick. Each of those other stars could have from 0 to 10 (or more) planets orbiting around it along with their associated moons.

Now, get ready...Beyond our Galaxy, there are thousands and thousands of other galaxies and each one of those also contains billions of stars in it. And, yes, each one of those stars could have from 0 to 10 (or more) planets orbiting around it with their own moons.

So space is enormously vast, probably beyond anything you have ever considered before...

Placed into perspective, scientists and astronomers can presenetly see out into space with their most sophisticated optical and radio telescope equipment to a "seeable" distance of 40 Billion Light Years in every direction from Earth. That distance is the technical limit of the equipment we have. Beyond that we just don't get any useable data from the equipment, so, it is not the end of space, or anything...We just can't see out any farther than that. Maybe in years to come a new technique will be developed to extend that out to say 60 Billion Light Years or so...Who knows?

The point is that 40 Billion Light Years in every possible direction is a fantasticly huge distance, and that is not the end of outer space... Try to write down how big a distance that is in MILES. Maybe then you will become a believer.

Now for the kicker...Everything in space is moving away from some central point, and has been doing so for eons of time. And, you have never heard of any star or galaxy bouncing off of the edge or the side of space have you??? Probably not, because there isn't one. It is vast beyond your wildest imagination. Silly people ask, well, what is beyond that? Come on... Do they thing that anyone knows for sure? No person has ever been there. No person is ever going there. And, if they ever did, an EMail to them via radio would take 40 Billion Years to reach them, and 40 Billion More Years for an answer to come back. Heck, the Sun is forecast to expand to immense size as its hydrogen supply becomes exhausted in 5 billion years, so our edge of space traveler is really of little consequence anyhow. We will all be burned to a crisp long before the long range space traveler gets very far out there.

Infinity? I just don't know...But 40 Billion Light Years is kind of close to it... might as well be infinity as far as I am concerned.

Answer 7

Our minds just can't comprehend that there could be an end to space - there has to be something beyond that, and beyond that, and so on.

But as difficult as it is to really grasp, cosmologists have strong observational evidence to show that space is expanding and its creating space as it expands. There isn't anything "beyond" space (right now, the visible universe is estimated at about 93 billion light years across).

Answer 8

I, with my math inclined brain, (or so they say) get the spins when I think of the concept of infinity, it goes on forever, or we are a part of a much larger entity, or thing and cant see the whole picture (like an electron or quark, maybe even a atomic nucleus, to us) and maybe that being or thing can see the end, but we can't...

Answer 9

Space is the new frontier, think of u outside the universe looking on...expand your mind and u may find space.
Search the clouds and nature for answers and most of all
PRAY TO GOD>AMEN

Answer 10

It ends with the marbles those aliens are carrying in MIB. A better question might be: what is beyond space?