THE OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE
The observable universe is 93 billion light-years across, stretching 46.5 billion light-years in all directions from Earth. This is the limit of what we can see.
But the actual universe? It’s at least 250 times bigger – or more. We don’t know for sure.
But the truth is, the universe as we know it is slowly slipping away from us. Even if we could travel “faster” than light speed, most everything that we can currently see. After a few thousands of light years away. Is now completely unreachable for us, forever.
With each second of every day, the galaxies and stars you see at night are disappearing from view forever.
Much of what is out there beyond that, that we have never seen because we are too far away…. galaxies and such. We will never see, as they are just too far away and moving away from us faster than the speed of light.
This is not because they’re moving away. Rather, the cosmos itself is expanding away from us, stretching the very fabric of space, and carrying the galaxies across the edge.
And then there’s our place in all of this. In over 60 years of human spaceflight, we’ve only traveled 1.3 light-seconds from Earth – barely a step in an unfathomably vast cosmos. But every discovery, every mission brings us closer to understanding the unseen.
