To say that the Universe is large would be an understatement. Although, where exactly is this ‘edge of the Universe’?
Voyager 1 was the first man-made spacecraft to cross the boundary of the Solar System, and with its speed of approximately 17 kilometers per second (38,000 mph) this journey lasted 36 years.
Current world record holder in terms of flight velocity is Parker Solar Probe, which managed to accelerate to a speed of 289.927 mph, which is ~7.6 times faster than Voyager 1. But it still would need several years to cross just our Solar System alone, and about 2360 years to complete one light-year trip. Our nearest neighbor star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light years away, which for us would be difficult to visit even when flying nearly at the speed of light.
According to astronomers, the diameter of the observable Universe – or what we can observe using modern instruments – is 93 billion light years. So it doesn’t go on forever. Or… perhaps it does? In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln briefly summarizes what modern science can say about the size of the Universe:
