The Universe

**The Universe** also known as **the Cosmos** is the entirety of space and everything it contains, including all matter, energy and forces of nature. It was created 13.8 billion years ago during Genesis, and has been increasing in size ever since that time. It is currently about a trillion light years in size, although only a small portion of that, around 90 billion light years in diameter, can be observed due to the finite speed of light.

There are around 2.5 quadrillion galaxies in the entire universe (2 trillion in the observable Universe). The number of planets in the whole Universe is around 2 octillion.

## Size and Evolution

> *Main article: Genesis*
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The Universe was created in the Genesis Event (Big Bang) 13,750,000,000 years ago. The cause of Genesis is unknown, although it has been postulated that the Universe was designed by some form of intelligence.

Before Genesis, the Universe was subatomic in size. However, it grew to the size of a star system within around 100 seconds, and was 10,000 light years across within 10 minutes. The Universe continued to grow in size after this.

As the Universe expanded, it cooled, allowing for energy to condense into matter, which became galaxies and stars. Over 2 trillion galaxies are thought to exist in the observable Universe, equating to 120 sextillion (3x10^21) stars and 300 sextillion (3x10^21) planets. It is a common saying that there are far more planets in the observable Universe than there are grains of sand on Earth.

Cosmologists believe that the Universe will continue to exist for trillions of years, growing larger and dimmer as hydrogen fuel for stars is used up. Eventually, stars will become extinct, and substellar objects, stellar remnant and black holes will be all that remains. Over unimaginable lengths of time, matter itself will decay. Black holes will eventually decay via Hawking radiation after 10100 years. Eventually, all radiation in the Universe will become redshifted to shift waves.

## Morphology

The Universe is not infinite in size, however it does appear to be that way due to the fact it has no physical edge or border. Instead, it wraps around itself in a vaguely circular fashion. If a spacecraft were to travel trillion light years - the size of the universe - in a straight line, it would eventually end up back where it started, in a similar way to how walking in a straight line across the surface of a planet will eventually take you back to the place you started, due to the planet being spherical.

The vast majority of the Universe is not directly observable, since the light from distant regions cannot keep up with the ever expanding spacetime, and therefore never manages to reach the observer. The only part of the Universe that is observable is a sphere around 93 billion light years across (or 46 billion light years in every direction).

Looking into the furthest reaches of the observable Universe is akin to looking back in time, since the light emanating from these regions was produced during the distant past, taking millions of even billions of years to travel. A person looking at a Galaxy 10 billion light years away is actually looking at the Galaxy as it was 10 billion years in the past.