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Assuming the universe is isotropic, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is roughly the same in every direction. That is, the observable universe is a spherical region centered on the observer. Every location in the universe has its own observable universe, which may or may not overlap with the one centered on Earth.
It represents the boundary between the observable and the unobservable regions of the universe, so its distance at the present epoch defines the size of the observable universe. Due to the expansion of the universe, it is not simply the age of the universe times the speed of light, as in the Hubble horizon, but rather the speed of light ...
The distinction between "observable" and "unobservable" is similar to Immanuel Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena.Noumena are the things-in-themselves, i.e., raw things in their necessarily unknowable state, [3] before they pass through the formalizing apparatus of the senses and the mind in order to become perceived objects, which he refers to as "phenomena".
The observable universe contains as many as an estimated 2 trillion galaxies [95] [96] [97] and, overall, as many as an estimated 10 24 stars [98] [99] – more stars (and earth-like planets) than all the grains of beach sand on planet Earth; [100] [101] [102] but less than the total number of atoms estimated in the universe as 10 82; [103] and ...
An expanding universe typically has a finite age. Light, and other particles, can have propagated only a finite distance. The comoving distance that such particles can have covered over the age of the universe is known as the particle horizon, and the region of the universe that lies within our particle horizon is known as the observable universe.
Much like the concept of a terrestrial horizon, it represents the boundary between the observable and the unobservable regions of the universe, [1] so its distance at the present epoch defines the size of the observable universe. [2]
"The observable universe is a phrase used to distinguish the extent of the universe observable to an Earth-based astronomer from the actual and unobservable current extent of the universe. Because light travels at a finite velocity (300,000 Km/s) we observe distant objects not as they are now but as they were when the light left them.
The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was completed in September 2012 and shows the farthest galaxies ever photographed at that time. Except for the few stars in the foreground (which are bright and easily recognizable because only they have diffraction spikes), every speck of light in the photo is an individual galaxy, some of them as old as 13.2 billion years; the observable universe is ...