The Visible Universe

Tweet

The Visible Universe

The Universe within 14 billion Light Years

How big is our actual universe compared to the part we can see (including all the astronomical instruments)?

If you really want a headache (the good kind), take a long look at this "photo." No, this is not a photo of the cosmic microwave background radiation. (Which you can actually see for yourself if you change your television channel to one of the "fuzzy" stations) Nor is it a collection of graphs of a cell structure. So, instead of telling you what it isn't, how about I tell you what it is? This is, well... everything. Everything we can see and observe anyway. What you're looking at is the "observable" universe. This particular map has a cellular appearance due to how the galaxies tend to collect into vast sheets and super clusters of stars that are surrounded by stunningly large voids in between them. You and I and everything we've ever known are smack in the middle there, along with our Local group, which is a part of the larger Virgo Supercluster.

Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God

Tweet

Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why we exist, says Stephen Hawking. Photograph: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images




• Physics, not creator, made Big Bang, new book claims

God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain's most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," he writes. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-bang-creator