My nephew has been asking me difficult astronomy questions,to which I did not know the answers. So I decided to ask the mighty Google, now I still have'nt an answer to this question - what is the diameter of the visible universe. Some sources quote about 28 billion light years and others around 150 bly. Does anyone know the correct answer please?
To me the visible universe is probably well under a billion light years. The furthest I can see with the naked eye is about 30 million light years.
Wth the most sophisticated viewing device the limit is somewhere close to 20 billion light years. I suppose you could still call this the visible universe.
What's outside this no one knows. Infinity is infinite. Nearly all the theories are made to fit with our consept of a finite universe. When our evolution reaches the point where we understand infinity we may have the answer to many things. That will not be in less than 100000 years if we can survive that long.
I can understand people coming up with the figure 28 bly, its logical but not correct. The furthest objects measured are around 14 bly away - BUT thats where those objects were 14 billion years ago! How far have they travelled since then in our expanding universe? Further out...
I don't think we have any idea of the true size of the universe, we can only describe it terms of what we are able to detect at present.
