• Question: How big is the entire area of space?

    Asked by kaitlyno to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 14 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by 358spaa48, Emily_Luisa_Taylor.
    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      We simply don’t know – he said in his best Patrick Moore voice.

      We can see out to about 47 billion light years, and that is as far as we can see, because beyond that the light will never reach us. So that is the size of the observable universe, but the universe is probably much much bigger than that.

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Julian is right, we know how big the observable Universe is, but the Universe as a whole is actually a lot bigger than that. We know the Universe is expanding, and the light from distant galaxies takes a long time to reach us. So what we observe to be a certain number of light years away, will actually be much further away than that now. Scientists estimate the Universe is about 90 billion light years across, and expanding all the time! A crazy thought!

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