Universe 250+ Times Bigger Than What Is Observable 506
eldavojohn writes "The universe is only fourteen billion years old so we are unable to observe anything more than fourteen billion light years away. This makes it a bit difficult for us to measure how large the universe actually is. A number of methodologies have been devised to estimate the size of the universe including the universe's curvature, baryonic acoustic oscillations and the luminosity of distant type 1A supernovas. Now a team has combined all known methods into Bayesian model averaging to constrain the universe's size and their research is saying with confidence that the universe is at least 250 times larger than the observable universe."
Re:What does that even mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you show me the point where a circle ends?
Re:What does that even mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing "physical" about the edge of the observable universe. It's just the boundary between galaxies whose light has had time to reach us, and galaxies whose light is still on its way.
Re:I'm confused. (Score:3, Insightful)
Which means that galaxies which are observable right now, will eventually blink out of (visible) existence due to the speed with which they are departing away from us.
Re:Not a physicist, but wish I were (Score:4, Insightful)
We *ARE* at the "epicenter".
Consider a balloon with polka dots on it. When it inflates, each dot expands away from the others. We are a polkadot on the three-dimensional surface of space-time, and every point in the universe is expanding away from us as space-time expands. If we were in M31, we would still see ourselves at the "center" of the expansion. If we were in that galaxy 14 Billion light years away, we'd still see ourselves at the "center".
Re:What does that even mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but I sure can show you an infinite number of points that lie outside the circle.
Re:Speed of Light? (Score:2, Insightful)