Thomas' Solar Playground

The Vast Size and Scale of the Universe

—

by

Thomas Shelton
in ,

BBC Science Focus

The Universe is also used as a reference point to display somethings enormity. “I love you more than anything in the world” is massively trumped by “I love you more than anything in the Universe.” But what does this really mean? How much can the universe really hold? How big is it REALLY? The Observable1 Universe itself is over 92 billion light years across. 92 BILLION!! For a brief scaling reference, just our Milky Way Galaxy (huge, by the way) is merely 100,000 light years across. Our Observable Universe is 920,000 times bigger than The Milky Way. Observed light from this far away could predate even the Milky Way itself. It would be 92 billion years old after all. With how advanced our science and technology is, even now it is hard to comprehend the sheer vastness of the Universe but it is a fascinating topic that I hope to learn more about.

  1. This is just obervable, who knows how much we do not know. ↩︎

Comments

5 responses to “The Vast Size and Scale of the Universe”

  1. Adriana Santos Avatar
    Adriana Santos

    Hi! I really like how you compared the vast size of the universe to the meaning we give to love or something with such enormity! It can be so hard for us to wrap our heads around such a large number, but when you phrase it conceptually, we can gain a much better understanding of just how much it means. It is amazing to think we are just a small part of something so large!

    Like

    Reply
  2. John Newell Avatar
    John Newell

    Hi Thomas – great post. All this talk of billions of light years does make me think about what is really going on here. Where is the light coming from? My understanding is that there is no “center” of the Universe per-se. But do we mean that in terms of the entire Universe, or our observable universe? Additionally, what do we see when we look past 13.8 billion light years? How can we possibly know that the universe is bigger than that, if light can only travel at c? Your post has me thinking hard about this. Thank you for the mental exercise!

    Like

    Reply
    1. Thomas Shelton Avatar
      Thomas Shelton

      Hi John – fantastic question! I am obviously by no means a pro at this, I just take what I can find and try to make sense of it. You bring up a fantastic point that I am going to have to do much more research on. Your mental exercise has become one for me as well! Do you have any sites or literature that you recommend I check out?

      Like

      Reply
      1. John Newell Avatar
        John Newell

        Well, as it turns out, this might be a little more complicated than I first imagined — no shock there. Distances past 13.8 billion light years might not necessarily be 13.8 billion years old, because we know that the Universe is expanding, which makes this much more difficult. Anyways, in terms of the size and our position in the Observable Universe, I found information on redshift and cosmic microwave background, both of which can be used in cooperation with actual images from telescopes to help understand our position in the Universe. Here it is: https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/universe/how-did-scientists-determine-the-size-of-the-universe.html

        Like

        Reply
  3. obisesoa Avatar
    obisesoa

    Good work, Thomas. Its incredible how the vast amount of literal space out there is only what we can detect, and even some of that is completely untouched and unobserved. It really makes one wonder just what else lies beyond this neck of the expanded universe. Although, the chances of any telescopes that can travel that far probably wouldn;t be returning any signals anytime soon.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started