92 billion light-year wide observable Universe.

 

Ask Ethan: How can we comprehend the size of the Universe?

"Human beings are tiny creatures compared to the 92 billion light-year wide observable Universe. How can we comprehend such large scales?"

"It might seem like an impossible task to comprehend such scales, but we owe it to ourselves to make the most sense of it that we can with our limited experiences."

'...it’s simply beyond what we’re familiar with on a day-to-day basis, and beyond what our senses are capable of perceiving and making sense of."

(Isaiah 55:8-9

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.)

“Trying to truly comprehend how large the universe really is seems like an ant trying to understand how far, say, New York is from California. Perhaps you could suggest some ways to wrap our heads around that.”

"Artist’s logarithmic scale conception of the observable Universe. The Solar System gives way to the Milky Way, which gives way to nearby galaxies which then give way to the large-scale structure and the hot, dense plasma of the Big Bang at the outskirts. Each line-of-sight that we can observe contains all of these epochs, but the quest for the most distant observed object will not be complete until we’ve mapped out the entire Universe. With each passing new year, another few tens of thousands of galaxies potentially become visible."

"If you insist on taking the leap from ourselves up to the size of the observable Universe, it’s easy to feel insignificant. But we are a part of many significant things that fit better on larger scales; we can view ourselves as creatures of Earth, members of the Solar System, a component of the Milky Way, and inhabitants of this Universe. This isn’t an inconceivably large place; rather, it’s the full extent of our home as best as we know it, and the nearby and distant objects beyond our own planet are our cosmic neighbors and relatives. Although they might seem inconceivably far away, from the perspective of the Universe, anything we can see is really just cosmically right next door."

Truth