Tricky! To this day we don’t know for sure if the Universe has an actual edge, and if it does, than what lies beyond that point?
We know one thing for sure: our universe is expanding at a pace higher than the speed of light. We know that nothing can exceed the speed of light, but when it comes to space, devoid of matter, it apparently can. A while back I was asked about the center of the Universe, and the answer some of you already know is the proverbial: I/you/and everyone and everything is the center of the Universe. Take any point of the Universe and the matter distributed around it is in equal amounts, therefore everything in the Universe is the center of the Universe. This is very hard to grasp, because we imagine the Universe to be a gigantic balloon inflating constantly. We are wrong. We are too limited to picture the actual shape of the Universe because we cannot perceive more than the 3 dimension we live in. There are a couple of theories to how the Universe might look like. One states that it has the shape of a balloon where we could actually reach the edge (by using our imagination, not actually reach it). Other theories state that the Universe is flat with 0 curvatures. In this scenario, the Universe is infinite in size. If the Universe is curved with positive curvatures, it will someday collapse into a Big Crunch and return to a singularity. If the Universe is curved with negative curvatures, it will continue to expand forever. Nowadays, this last scenario is the most likely out of all others, but it is the most disappointing if we relate it to your question. If the Universe will expand forever, in a couple of billion years we will never EVER be able to reach another galaxy (let alone the edge of the Universe) by using a spacecraft or any other means of travel, because the moment we will leave our galaxy, the intergalactic space would expand so rapidly, that even if we travel at the speed of light, the space would dilate at a more rapid pace. We wouldn’t even be able to return to our own galaxy. We would just lay there looking at the galaxies slowly fading away. Our local cluster will eventually collide into a huge galaxy that will be destined to remain alone in the dark, forever, with us stuck inside its huge spiraling arms.

If we come back to our current times and invent a super fast spacecraft to make intergalactic traveling possible, the problem remains the same. The edge of the Universe would be impossible to reach, because there probably isn’t one. The most logical shape imagined of the entire cosmos is not the balloon but a super spiraling doughnut. It doesn’t matter how fast you travel, you would never reach an ending point. Best case scenario, you would come back to the same point you started your journey from. – Roman Alexander
PS: I realize that there are many other theories out there, like the ant theory. So if you want to add one in the comment section, please do so. I will be glad to post them on Astropeeps.com.
(The question was originally asked by Karthikeyan Mariyappan from India)


Leave a comment