Key facts
- Category
- Universe
- Object class
- Observable universe
- Scale fact
- ~93 billion lydiameter
- Estimated age
- ~13.8 billion years
Observable Universe
~93 billion lydiameter
Visual creditscaleofspace.org, CMB ring from ESA/Planck data / CC BY-NC 4.0
Details
The observable universe is the part of the cosmos whose light has had time to reach us since cosmic expansion began. Looking deeper into it means looking back in time: Hubble’s deepest fields show galaxies more than 13 billion years in the past, not as they are now but as they were when the universe was young.
The observable universe is the region from which signals could have reached us during cosmic history. Its horizon is not a wall, and the full universe may be much larger or infinite beyond it.
Although the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, expansion has carried the most distant matter now observable to a present-day distance of roughly 46.5 billion light-years in every direction. The resulting diameter is about 93 billion light-years, while the light arriving from those regions shows them at much earlier times.
Links
- Universe journey
- Observable universe
- Wikipedia
- Observable Universe on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Observable Universe on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Observable Universe falls above Local Superclusters Region near the largest end of the catalog. The band uses nearby Universe records.
Shared physical scale
71.1billion ly
Sources
References for Observable Universe
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Observable Universe — Wikipedia
- Visual: scaleofspace.org, CMB ring from ESA/Planck data / CC BY-NC 4.0
Continue with nearby objects or open the full scale.
About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.