How do we know the Universe is 93 billion light years across?

How do we know the Universe is 93 billion light years across?

That’s because over time, space has been expanding, so the distant objects that gave off that light 13.8 billion years ago have since moved even farther away from us. Multiply times 2, and you get 93 billion light years, the diameter of the observable universe.

How do we know the Universe is billions of years old?

We do not know the exact age of the universe, but we believe that it is around 13 billion years – give or take a few billion. Astronomers estimate the age of the universe in two ways: (a) by looking for the oldest stars; and (b) by measuring the rate of expansion of the universe and extrapolating back to the Big Bang.

What is the evidence that the Universe began in a hot dense state?

The cosmic background radiation provides direct evidence that the universe did expand from a dense, hot state, for this is the condition needed to produce the radiation. In the dense, hot early universe thermonuclear reactions produced elements heavier than hydrogen, including deuterium, helium and lithium.

How can the Universe be wider than its age?

This can happen in strong gravitational potentials, or in, say, an expanding universe. So yes, objects in the Universe can travel faster than c away from us due to the expansion of the Universe, and the Universe itself can be much larger than expected given its age and the speed of light.

Is the universe 93 billion years old?

As you can imagine, some confusion arises when one considers the fact that the universe is not 13.8 billion light-years across — a number that corresponds with the age of the universe. By current estimates, it’s actually quite a bit larger with an estimated diameter of some 93 billion light-years.

How do we know when the universe was created?

According to the standard Big Bang model, the universe was born during a period of inflation that began about 13.8 billion years ago. Like a rapidly expanding balloon, it swelled from a size smaller than an electron to nearly its current size within a tiny fraction of a second.

What do you understand by the term light year?

Light-year is the distance light travels in one year. Light zips through interstellar space at 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second and 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers) per year.

How many light years across is the universe?

Originally Answered: How can it be understood that the universe is 93 billion light years across and yet only 13.8 billion years old?

How old is the universe?

You might think, in a Universe limited by the speed of light, that would be 13.8 billion light years: the age of the Universe multiplied by the speed of light. But 13.8 billion light years is far too small to be the right answer.

What is the diameter of the universe?

Therefore the diameter of that sphere would be 27.6 billion light years. So that brings us a little closer to the diameter of the 93 billion light year of the “observable” universe that is often quoted. Each of the yellow or red bumps seen on the CMB image below, will, by NOW, 13.8 billion years later, have become a supercluster of galaxies.

Is 92 billion light years big enough?

And so 92 billion light years might seem like a large number for a 13.8 billion year old Universe, but it’s the right number for the Universe we have today, full of matter, radiation, dark energy, and obeying the laws of General Relativity.