how big is the universe

Question: how big is the universe
- Keywords:
  universe
Asked by tedy2002 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 13 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by tkidner.
- Adam Stevens answered on 10 Mar 2012:
  
  MASSIVE!
  
  The generally accepted consensus is that the universe was created in the big bang and has been expanding since then. But we don’t really understand what might happen at the edge of the universe… or if there even is an edge. So the universe could be infinitely big.
  
  But that’s not the final answer, because it could circle back in on itself, or just carry on for ever, or something else that we can’t even imagine. This is one of the things I’ve never really understood, that and the fact there’s different types of infinity!
- Leila Battison answered on 10 Mar 2012:
  
  Unbelieveably huge! I have never really understood all the different ideas of how it has no edge, or is expanding into itself, or what is on the outside, and I find it a little bit scary to think about sometimes!
  
  The universe that we can see from Earth, called the ‘observable universe’, is thought to be about 93 billion light years across (though I don’t know how it got that big, or how we know!), and the furthest thing we have seen is an exploded star 13 billion light years away. So yeah, pretty big!
- Nazim Bharmal answered on 10 Mar 2012:
  
  It is so big that we can’t see all of it at the same time so, in a way, we can’t compare it with the size of a room where you can see the edges. At the “edge” of the universe, we actually see when it was being created!
  
  Like Adam said, we don’t really know if there is even an actual edge and perhaps we never will.
  
  But, there is lots of stars and galaxies and planets we can observe and see, so plenty to study. Which is good for our jobs.
- Catherine Rix answered on 12 Mar 2012:
  
  have a look at this very nice link http://www.scaleoftheuniverse.com
- Karen Masters answered on 13 Mar 2012:
  
  We think it probably goes on forever, but we can only ever see the bit of it which light has had time to reach us from since the Big Bang. The most distant thing we can see is the afterglow of the Big Bang which was emitted only 400,000 years after the Big Bang. The universe has expanded by 1000 times since that light was emitted, so the light has “only” had to travel 13.7 billion light years, but the place from which it was emitted is “currently” 46 billion light years from us! Crazy huh!

Question: how big is the universe

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