Outside the space pinhead
 Q: If all that now exists in the Universe, including
space and time, was contained in a volume the size of a
round pin head, what existed outside of that?
[Duccio Macchetto (ESA/STScI), Mauro Giavalisco (STScI), and NASA] A
glimpse at the primeval Universe.
A: The best theory we have to explain the Universe is
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Using that
theory, and fitting the data we have tells us that space is
infinite, expanding, and the expansion is accelerating.
Space has always been infinite, even at the moment of its
creation: the Big Bang. This is much to cope with.
Anything that's infinite has no boundary and, therefore, no
outside. Space stretches but does not displace something
else. That is the basic answer to your question. But
there's more...
The pinhead-size patch which contained all the matter we know now, was perhaps one of an
infinite number of space-time patches--each infinite and intrinsically unknowable by the other
patches. If these huge patches exist, they have other sciences, other realities. We can never
detect or observe them using the tools at hand.
The figure shows one of the farthest normal galaxies yet detected12 billion light-years awayas it
looked about two billion years after the Big Bang.
Further Surfing:
Ask the Space Scientist, Sten Odenwald, NASA
The creation of a cosmology: the Big Bang theory
Galaxies in the young universe
|
