Space, or the universe, is incredibly vast. The observable universe has a diameter of about 93 billion light-years , meaning that the farthest objects we can observe are approximately 46.5 billion light-years away in every direction from Earth. However, this observable part is only a portion of the entire universe, which may be much larger or even infinite, but science has no definitive measure of its total size.
Key Points about the Size of Space:
- The observable universe is a sphere roughly 93 billion light-years across.
- This vast size results from the 13.8 billion years of cosmic expansion, stretching distances far beyond the light travel time.
- The whole universe may be infinitely large or vastly bigger than the observable part, but its exact extent is unknown.
- The Milky Way galaxy alone is about 100,000 light-years across, tiny compared to the full observable universe.
What Does This Mean?
Space is not just "big" — it is almost incomprehensibly large, far beyond everyday scales or even planetary or stellar scales. The observable universe is enormous, containing hundreds of billions to possibly trillions of galaxies, but the total universe likely extends further, with no current limits known to science.
In summary, space as we know it from observations spans approximately 93 billion light-years across, but its true full size could be infinite or beyond what we can currently observe.
