How big is the universe? BIG. Really VERY BIG!!!

This is an extract from an excellent article I found on ‘Future Hi’.

The Universe is so huge in fact that we’ll have to play around with scales so one can get a better idea.

According to the standard inflationary model of cosmology, the visible portion of our universe, the one mapped by our telescopes is an infinitesimally small speck in a much larger universe of at least 10 to the power 35 light-years across!

Admittedly this number is really, really big, and almost impossible to imagine. So lets shrink everything down, WAY down, just so we can get a better grasp of it. Let's imagine that the entire universe that we have seen in all the worlds telescopes, all the galaxies, all trillion of them, extending out 13 billion light years in every direction is shrunk down to the size of a golf ball.

If we do a volume calculation, the actual universe contains 10 to the power 60 of those golf balls! Wow, I guess we didn't shrink things down far enough, but this will have to do. So how big a volume would 10 to the power 60 golf balls fill up? Try a sphere 850 light years across! So imagine a mass of golf balls that big, and each one of those golf balls contains all the stars and galaxies that we can see through our telescopes!!

Now let’s try it with speed. Ready? Imagine traveling so fast that you can go from on end of the galaxy to the other in just one second. At this speed the entire galaxy would be in reach before you can say the word "go", and wham, you're there. At this speed, you could travel to the nearest galaxy Andromeda in 22 seconds flat. And you could cross from end of the visible universe to the other in 72 hours.

So, lets speed up our warp vehicles again, so that we can travel a quintillion light years every second. At such a speed we could cross the known universe 100 million times in one second.

How long would it take to cross from one side of the universe to the other?
.......................... 3.7 billion years!!!

Courtesy www.futurehi.net...

Makes you feel small, real small, what?

But the question here is that if the Universe is THAT big, is it possible that it could have emanated from a single point after the so-called ‘Big Bang’? Probably we may never understand how the Universe was really created until we break free from our present three dimensional thought processes.



[edit on 11-8-2006 by mikesingh]

posted by mikesingh

Makes you feel small, real small, what? But the question here is that if the Universe is THAT big, is it possible that it could have emanated from a single point after the so-called ‘Big Bang’? Probably we may never understand how the Universe was really created until we break free from our present three dimensional thought processes.
[Edited by Don W]

A project to create an easier way to measure cosmic distances has turned up surprising evidence our large and ancient universe might be even bigger and older than previously thought. A research team has found that the Triangulum Galaxy, known as M33, is about 15 percent farther away from our own Milky Way than previously calculated. The finding suggests that the Hubble constant, a number that measures the expansion rate and age of the universe, is actually 15 percent smaller than other studies have found.

Scientists estimate the universe to be about 13.7 billion years old since 2003, based on measurements of radiation leftover from the Big Bang. The new finding implies that the universe is instead about 15.8 billion years old. The researchers looked at a binary star system in M33 where the stars eclipsed each other every five days.

Unlike single stars, the masses of paired stars can be precisely calculated based on their movements. With knowledge of the stars' masses, the researchers could calculate their true luminosities. The difference between true luminosity and observed luminosity gives the distance between the stars and Earth. The team's results suggested that the stars were about 3 million light-years from Earth, or about half-a-million light-years farther than would be expected using the commonly accepted Hubble constant value.

This is representative of the kind of progress being made in all fields of science. Science is the future.

WOW !!!

I never really had any means to size up the whole universe. It is impossible to put in my mind. You can try and think about it but cant really truley grasp the size of it. This is totally mind blowing, and I cant even imagine how small me as a single 160 pound human being is in this universe. Thanks for this !!!

It opens your mind and lets you think...really really think about things.

The Universe
Some Facts to Help You Live In It

1. Area: Infinite
Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real "wow, that's big," time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.

2. Imports: None
It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things from

3. Exports: None
See: Imports.

4. Population: None
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

5. Monetary Units: None
In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flanian Pobble bead is only exchangeable for other Flanian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination.

6. Art: None
The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn't a mirror big enough - See: Area.

7. Sex: None
Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, art or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people of the Universe occupied. However, it is not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now because it really is terribly complicated. For further information see Chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four inclusive, and in fact most of the rest of the book.

WOW! I never realised how big the universe realy is. Looks like instead of traveling through the universe we need to look at other means like wormholes and string theory to get around in the far future because it seems like warp will be to slow lol.

posted by Damien_III

WOW! I never realized how big the universe really is . . it seems like warp will be to slow lol.

Of course, no one knows what we can learn or do in the future. I once read, “You can’t do anything you cannot imagine.” That’s right when you think about it. This is the role sci-fi plays in man’s progress. You’ve got to “think” it before you can do it.

If we could travel back and forth across the universe that we could see, 100 million times in one second, (that is impressively fast enough to melt my brain) it would take how long to cross the actual universe? 3.7 BILLION YEARS.....WTF!!!!!!

Just a quick question, if they can't see it, how do they know its so big? Maths I guess.

Originally posted by Toasty
Just a quick question, if they can't see it, how do they know its so big? Maths I guess.

We can see with, with the myriad of space based telescopes that are out there. Though, math does have to do quite a bit with it.

Wait I’m a bit lost here, if there is more universe than we can actually see then wouldn’t that mean that the universe has to be a LOT older than 13 or 15 billion years old? Can some explain to me where this "missing" universe is at?

posted by WestPoint23

“ . . if there is more universe than we can actually see then wouldn’t that mean that the universe has to be a LOT older than 13 or 15 billion years old? Can some explain where this "missing" universe is at? [Edited by Don W]

No, WP23. I cannot explain that. What I’ve heard is that we can see quasars - the most distant light sources - at 13 billion light years distant. Which is also going back into time as we cross great distances. That is, if a given quasar is 13 billion light years away, then to see its light is also looking back into time the same amount. A light year being the distance light travels in one year. 5.9 T. miles.

So, you ask, how can a guy who can see only 13 billion light years, say the universe is 180 billion light year across and 30 billion light years deep? I don’t know. Do I believe it? Yes.

Then, you might ask, why don’t you believe the children at Fatima? Or the people at Lourdes? Or at Guadalupe? Well, that’s a different ball game. I like the rules of science better than I like those other rules. Since I’m free to pick and choose, I will believe (say accept) the 180 billion story but not believe (say won't accept) the Fatima story. Simple? Yes, for me it is.



[edit on 8/14/2006 by donwhite]

By the way we've just found out that the Universe is actually 15% bigger and older than we previously had thought.

I have always thought that the Universe was never ending and it never had a starting point. It was just always there, and the space of the Universe is just on and pon and will never ever end.

Originally posted by RetinoidReceptor
I have always thought that the Universe was never ending and it never had a starting point. It was just always there, and the space of the Universe is just on and pon and will never ever end.

That's what the Jains believe too.

How can such a mindboggling 'infinite' universe come into existance from a small, so-called singularity? From a 'point' that exploded with a big bang?

I believe in the 'Steady State' theory - that the universe was always there. It's expanding because of gravitational pressure and once this becomes weak due to the distances involved, it starts contracting again. Like the universe was breathing.

Darn, I wish I knew how the devil the universe started in the first place!

[edit on 16-8-2006 by mikesingh]

Originally posted by mikesingh
How can such a mindboggling 'infinite' universe come into existance from a small, so-called singularity? From a 'point' that exploded with a big bang?

Actually the universe didn't come from an explosion, yet rather from an expansion of ionic particals into present day atoms.

Originally posted by mikesingh
I believe in the 'Steady State' theory - that the universe was always there. It's expanding because of gravitational pressure and once this becomes weak due to the distances involved, it starts contracting again. Like the universe was breathing.

Darn, I wish I knew how the devil the universe started in the first place!

It goes with the Hindu principle that the universe is born, dies, and is reborn again. Sort of like a phoenix.

It's really amazing to think of how big it actually is. Our planet seems big but then, it's not even the biggest in our solar system. Our solar system is nothing compared to other solar systems. The millions trillions billions of solar systems and galaxies that are known, don't even represent that much compared to the whole universe..

And this is what's really amazing to think about. What if, just like all of the galaxies, our universe is just a small being in a much bigger object? What if our "universe" is just another galaxy type object in an ACTUAL universe? That would be totally mind blowing, but, unfortunately, we'll never know.

The funny thing is that I'm sure that in a few years, this universal view qill be seen as too small. They'll just say it's bigger and bigger as they discover more and more. Trying to put big numbers into the concept of infinity just makes big numbers look small in comparison.

Well technically the Universe is in its Green Stage. Blue indicating near birth and Red indicating near death. This goes opposite of the shifts as a Blue Universe would have red Shift and a Red Universe would have a Blue Shift.

I figure that the true age of the Universe is much more closer to 20 billion Earth years right now and are pace we'll realize that after the turn of the next century.

all lies... i refuse to believe that anything i see up in the sky is that far away. If everyone says the government lies to us all the time, what makes you think there not lying about how far away, and how easy it is to get to all those shiny lights? Only 12 people have walked on the moon so far, so no one else can say anything until they've been there themselves.

Reading this makes so much things just rush threw my mind at once!! First this makes me think of the show Futurama when they go to the edge of the universe and see themselves in a parallel dimension (like a mirror), and it also makes me think of the simpson when at the couch gag we see, the simpson's residence, earth, solar system, milky way, universe, then it goes on and on and finally leads right out of homers mouth..lol.. But seriously, its like saying one galaxy, couldn't even equal one atom of our body! Just makes you wonder about many things at once...The milky way is just like a small particle on the smallest particle compared to the rest of the universe!! .... Its mind-boggling

-Jimmy-