Question: Is there an end to space?

Hester Baird answered on 15 Mar 2021:

That’s a really good (and tricky!) question, and one which has multiple answers! Scientists don’t really know whether the Universe is finite, which means it has an edge, or infinite, which means it extends on forever. But, there is an ‘edge’ to space which limits how much information we know about the Universe. This edge is the limit of where we can see using our telescopes, which is called the ‘Observable Universe’. Light travels at approximately 300000000 metres per second, so it takes time for light to reach us from across the Universe and for us to then observe things. We know that the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, and the Universe has been expanding since. So, we can only observe things which are close enough that the light they emit has been able to travel across the Universe and reach us within that 13.8 billion years. There will be other stars and galaxies further out of this observable ‘bubble’ that we just can’t see.