• Question: do you think space ever ends?

    Asked by phantom to Arlene, Colin, David, Eugene, Paul on 16 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: David McKeown

      David McKeown answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      Using telescopes we have looked very very far and we haven’t found an end yet. A lot of scientists think that space is probably infinite (Never ending). We do know it is definitely getting BIGGER!

    • Photo: Paul Higgins

      Paul Higgins answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      Whether space “ends” or not depends on if our universe is “closed”, and shaped like a “hyper-sphere” (meaning it is not infinite) or “open” and shaped like a “hyper-saddle” (meaning it is infinite). Basically, if there is enough mass and energy in the universe, gravity will curve the universe in such a way that it is like a bubble. But since our universe is expanding and that expansion is accelerating, it is more likely that our universe is infinite, so that if you keep walking in one direction, you can go on forever and not end up back where you started. At the moment, we can see to a distance of about 13.4 billion light years- which also means we are looking 13.4 billion light years back in time. This is when the first light was able to travel through space.

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