• Question: What does the universe look like beyond the limits to our visible universe? To answer this question, we would have to be able to 'see' to distances farther than light has been able to travel since the Big Bang. Big Bang theory and general relativity say that their is a lot more space beyond the 15 billion light years horizon limit, but we will never be able to see if the same kinds of galaxies as those around us exist 'out there'.

    Asked by metalmaster99 to Ben, Clare, Ezzy, Mario, Sam on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Mario Campanelli

      Mario Campanelli answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      so, you basically say that there is no way to know the answer, which is what I would probably say as well

    • Photo: Clare Burrage

      Clare Burrage answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      You’re right, we can’t know what the universe looks like beyond what we can see. Probably it still looks a lot like the parts of the universe we can see, but we’ll never know for sure.

    • Photo: Elizabeth Pearson

      Elizabeth Pearson answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Very correct. The universe is larger than 15 billion light years because of something called Inflation. Right after the big band (fractions of a second) the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. Normally that doesn’t work, but physics went really weird at that point so it’s allowed.

      Would galaxies look the same out there? Yes and no. When we observe distant galaxies the light we see is billions of years old, so we see what they looked like a billion years ago. If we could instantly see 20 billion light years away though they should look the same as they do here. According to what we believe at the moment the universe is ‘homogenous and isotropic’ that means it looks the same no matter where you are in it Of course out towards the edge it might be different, but we’re never likely to see it, so we’ll probably never know.

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