The size of the universe is a mind-boggling concept, and scientists are continually refining their understanding. Here’s what we know:
How Big is the Universe?
It’s crucial to distinguish between the observable universe and the entire universe.

• The Observable Universe: This is the portion of the universe from which light has had time to reach us since the Big Bang. Despite the universe being approximately 13.8 billion years old, the observable universe has a diameter of about 93 billion light-years. This is because the universe has been expanding, so objects that emitted light 13.8 billion years ago are now much farther away. The radius of the observable universe is therefore estimated to be around 46.5 billion light-years.
• The Entire Universe: The total size of the universe is unknown and potentially infinite. While we can observe a vast expanse, there’s no way to know what lies beyond the reach of light that has traveled to us. Some theories suggest the entire universe could be vastly larger than the observable universe, perhaps even trillions of light-years across.
  What Scientists Have Uncovered Beyond the Dwarf Planet Pluto
  Beyond Pluto, our understanding of the Solar System extends significantly:
• The Kuiper Belt: This is a vast, disc-shaped region of icy bodies and dwarf planets (including Pluto) that extends beyond Neptune’s orbit, from about 30 to 50 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. It’s similar to the asteroid belt but much larger and more massive. Scientists continue to discover new objects in this region, such as the recently identified dwarf planet 2017 OF201.
• The Oort Cloud: Far beyond the Kuiper Belt lies the Oort Cloud, a theoretical spherical shell of icy, comet-like objects. It’s thought to be the source of long-period comets and extends from thousands to tens of thousands of AU from the Sun. While it hasn’t been directly observed due to its immense distance and the faintness of its objects, its existence is inferred from the orbits of comets.
• Interstellar Space: Beyond the Oort Cloud, our Solar System’s direct gravitational influence wanes, and we enter interstellar space – the vast emptiness between star systems.
• Other Stars and Exoplanets: As we venture further, we encounter other stars, many of which have their own planetary systems (exoplanets). The closest star to our Sun is Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri system, located about 4.2 light-years away.
• Galaxies: Our Solar System is just one tiny speck within the Milky Way Galaxy, a massive spiral galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars. Beyond the Milky Way, there are countless other galaxies, grouped into clusters and superclusters, forming the large-scale structure of the universe. The observable universe alone contains at least 100 billion galaxies.
• Cosmic Web: On the largest scales, galaxies and galaxy clusters are not randomly distributed but form a “cosmic web” of filaments and voids, with dense regions where galaxies cluster and vast empty spaces between them.
  The journey of discovery extends far beyond Pluto, revealing an ever-more immense and complex cosmos than previously imagined.

The limitless universe

The universe is generally referred to as infinite, unknown, and limitless. With over 2 trillion galaxies and millions of stars and planets, the universe is so enormous that it stretches the boundaries of human understanding. From cosmic road trip analogies to mind-bending measurement of the universe, here’s a closer examination of just how gigantic our universe really is.

From the 6,000-year odyssey to Pluto to the outward-horizon frontiers of the observable universe, space isn’t just huge; it’s unimaginable. Trillions of galaxies, millions of stars, and more mysteries than our imaginations can conjure, the universe simply continues to expand physically and in our understanding of it

How does Pluto’s distance help us understand the size of the universe

To understand just how enormous space is, let’s begin with an analogy that’s close to home — a road trip. If you could travel in a straight line at highway speed (approximately 60 mph or 100 km/h), the drive to Pluto, which is the outermost farthest-out dwarf planet that defines the edge of our solar system, would take around 6,000 years. That’s longer than has passed since the beginning of recorded human existence.

And yet, cosmically speaking, Pluto is basically in the neighbourhood. It’s merely 5.9 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from our own planet — an infinitesimal distance on the cosmic scale of things.

Mystery beyond the observable Universe 

One of the most mind-boggling and perplexing things that we are aware of concerning the universe is that it has no boundary. It is not enclosed by a wall or endpoint where the universe ends. What astronomers refer to as the “observable universe” is just that portion that we can see and observe with light and other radiation.

What is out there? That’s still one of the biggest secrets of science. The universe could be infinite, or it could curve up in ways we can’t yet perceive — like the surface of a four-dimensional sphere. Up until now, everything that’s outside the observable universe is beyond scientific measurement.

Despite incredible technological leaps, human exploration has only begun to graze the surface of what is out there. We’ve walked on the Moon, launched Mars rovers and shot probes to the limits of our solar system and even these achievements represent only a tiny droplet of cosmic distances.

The farthest artificially built object to be placed in space is Voyager 1, which was launched in 1977. It is still in the Milky Way and has travelled approximately 24 billion kilometers—an infinitesimally small distance on a cosmic scale. The scale of the universe is humbling and awe-inspiring. It reminds how tiny we are but how much more there is to discover. With every step towards space travel, we gain more knowledge of where we fit in the universe.

Please like subscribe comment your precious comment on universe discoveries

Full article source google