I Was Curious

I was curious…

…and I found out the distance to the edge of the observable universe is about 46.5 billion light years!

“What?” you say – “I thought it was 13.7 billion give or take a bit.”

Well actually, that’s the age of the universe, not the size. The light from the furthest things we can see has taken about 13 billion years to reach us – but that light left those objects 13 billion years ago – and in the meantime we’ve moved and those objects have moved.

So, the best estimate at the moment is that the edge of the observable universe is 46.5 billion light years away. Doubling that gives you a diameter of 93 billion light years.

More info available on wikipedia along with other cool info about super-clusters, filaments, voids, the Great Wall and the Great Attractor!