The size of us. Just how big is the universe?
By: Tim Pace
Tags: Astronomy, Space, Stars, Universe, Speed Of Light

Space facts. Just random thoughts I want to touch on again. Pondering the beginning and end of everything. Im not trying to bring religion into this. Just sticking with logic alone. Im going to discuss my thoughts on the issue.

The start?

I put a question mark after the start. Why? Because nobody really knows if this is the first universe or if this is a continuous battle between matter (dark matter and regular matter) vs Gravity. A continuous cycle of expansion and contraction. This is very logical and I can certainly see why people assume that this could be the way the universe has worked for possible trillions of years already. In the grand scheme of the life of the universe a trillion years is a lot to us. But its not even a dent in the life of the universe.

As I type this I struggle to find the words to properly encompass the magnitude of the amount of time energy etc involved in these processes. Even if this is the 1st or 2nd or 5th time the universe has come into existence we can clearly see certain things that would last for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years or longer. That is just a brown dwarf lifespan. Black holes can last for 10 to the 100 years. Meaning that would be 10 with 100 zeroes following it. We cannot fathom that amount of time. No matter how hard we try. The universe is giant and we are miniscule.

Essentially what we are is an attempt by atoms to understand where they came from. As we discover more we are becoming the universe looking into a mirror. We have a lot to learn. But we have one thing going for us. Curiosity. As a human with a well developed mind I often ponder where it all began. We can say religion and that could be the case for all I know. But the scientist in me urges me to dig deeper.

So simply traveling from one side of the observable universe to the other edge (even if we had a space ship that went light speed) would take 90.68 billion light-years.

So lets just use hypotheticals. We made a space craft hit like 36,373 mph. That is very fast for a human made vehicle. With this in mind going that speed I just mentioned it would take 20,000 years approximately. Incredible. So that is just one light year. LOL. Lets try and figure out how long it would take to use the same space craft I mentioned (36,373 MPH) to travel across the universe. (Note the observable universe is just what we can see because that is the distance light has had time to travel. The universe could technically extend far beyond that border. Scientists just dont know)

Okay back to travelling the cosmos. 1 light year = 20,000 years give or take. Lets just stick with 20k for math ease. The observable universe is estimated to be 90.68 billion light-years. Im just going to say 90 billion light years. So lets do a bit of math.

20,000 years (time it takes to travel one light year on the fastest machine humans have ever created)

Speed limit: 36,373 MPH

Distance to travel: 90 billion light years (observable universe)

How long would this take?

1,800,000,000,000,000 years. That is over a trillion years. I hope you brought a book.

Travelling the cosmos with conventional methods is impossible. We will likely figure out a better way but until then space travel will be limited to our very own neighborhood Im afraid. I could type about space all day long. But just think about this for a second and then think about the BS we trip about daily. We are a spec in the universe. Ultimately insignificant. Utterly unnoticeable. So quit worrying so much. Life is short. Lets figure out where we came from!