{"id":12919,"date":"2024-10-24T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=12919"},"modified":"2024-10-07T07:58:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T07:58:47","slug":"curious-kids-what-does-the-edge-of-the-universe-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/curious-kids-what-does-the-edge-of-the-universe-look-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Curious Kids: What does the edge of the universe look like?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n \n
\n \n Greg Rakozy\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n Sara Webb<\/a>, Swinburne University of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n
\n

What does the edge of the universe look like?<\/p>\n\n

Lily, age 7, Harcourt<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

What a great question! In fact, this is one of those questions humans will continue to ask until the end of time. That\u2019s because we don\u2019t actually know for sure. <\/p>\n\n

But we can try and imagine what the edge of the universe might be, if<\/em> there is one.<\/p>\n\n

Looking back in time<\/h2>\n\n

Before we begin, we do need to go back in time. Our night sky has looked the same for all of human history. It\u2019s been so reliable, humans from all around the world came up with patterns they saw in the stars as a way to navigate and explore.<\/p>\n\n

To our eyes, the sky looks endless. With the invention of telescopes about 400 years ago, humans were able to see farther \u2013 more than just our eyes ever could. They continued to discover new things in the sky. They found more stars, and then eventually started to notice that there were a lot of strange-looking cosmic clouds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Astronomers gave them the name \u201cnebula\u201d from the Latin word for \u201cmist\u201d or \u201ccloud\u201d. <\/p>\n\n

It was less than 100 years ago that we first confirmed these cosmic clouds or nebulas were actually galaxies. They are just like Milky Way, the galaxy our own planet is in, but very far away.<\/p>\n\n

What is amazing is that in every direction we look in the universe, we see more and more galaxies. In this James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> image, which is looking at a part of the sky no bigger than a grain of sand, you can see thousands of galaxies. <\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine there is an edge where all of this stops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The edge of the universe<\/h2>\n\n

However, there is technically an edge to our universe. We call it our \u201cobservable\u201d universe.<\/p>\n\n

This is because we don\u2019t actually know if our universe is infinite \u2013 meaning it continues forever and ever.<\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, we might never know because of one pesky thing: the speed of light. <\/p>\n\n

We can only ever see light that\u2019s had enough time to travel to us. Light travels at exactly 299,792,458 metres per second. Even at those speeds, it still takes a long time to cross our universe. Scientists estimate the size of the universe is at least 96 billion light years across, and likely even bigger. <\/p>\n\n

You can learn a little more about that and our universe as a whole in this video below.<\/p>\n\n

\n