How old is the Universe?
THE word "Universe" encompasses quite a lot, time, space, planets, in short... everything.
But how old is it, and is it expanding?
How old is the Universe?
The simple answer is, we don't know exactly.
The age, diameter and origin of the Universe is one of the most intriguing and perplexing questions in astronomy.
As you can imagine, calculating its size is a pretty complex process, and that's a galaxy-sized understatement.
Scientists produce these estimates using the movement of stars to measure expansion.
It's thought to be around 13.8 billion years old, though estimates vary.
Some scientists have proposed it could be more than 2 billion years younger, at a mere 11.2 billion.
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How big is the Universe?
The Universe is enormous on a level that's unfathomable to the human mind.
It's thought the observable universe has a total diameter of around 92 billion light-years.
Scientists are able to make educated guesses as to its size by seeking out the farthest observable point from our planet.
This should mean that it's the oldest, given that we're contending with light years, and light from these objects will take longest to reach us.
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By finding the furthest point, we're able to broadly estimate a diameter.
Some scientists have suggested that the true size of the Universe could be over 250 times larger than the 93 billion estimate.
This would make its diameter over 7 trillion light-years.
Is the Universe expanding?
The Universe is expanding, due to the after effects of the Big Bang.
This colossal explosion spread matter and energy throughout the Universe, and the expansion continues to this day.
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The cosmos' continued growth is the measure by which experts date the Universe. They do this by winding the clock back to the tiny point from which everything sprang.
Though the explosion occurred thousands of millions of years ago, its thought that, due to a mysterious force known as dark energy, its expansion is actually accelerating, rather than slowing down.
