• Question: what shape is the universe?

    Asked by ellenbmth to Ben, Clare, Ezzy, Mario, Sam on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Mario Campanelli

      Mario Campanelli answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      well, the concept of “shape” is hard to define, since it assumes that there is an external observer who could watch the universe, and this is almost by definition probably impossible

    • Photo: Clare Burrage

      Clare Burrage answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      We don’t know, because there’s only a part of the universe we can see.
      The universe is (only!) 13 billion years old, and light can only travel at a fixed speed (roughly two hundred thousand miles per second). So even if light has been traveling since the very beginning of the universe there’s only so far away we can see.
      It’s quite possible that out side of what we can see the universe goes on forever, but we just don’t know!

    • Photo: Elizabeth Pearson

      Elizabeth Pearson answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Don’t know. There are all kinds of theories – a ball, a donut, a pringle, some strange 4 dimensional thing incomprehensible to human minds. Depends what you mean by the universe as well. If it’s just up to where the galaxies have gotten to then it’s probably a sphere shape.

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