this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
34 points (92.5% liked)
science
21443 readers
356 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My quick search shows numbers much closer to yours than mine. I remember mine because I was surprised it was so small. I thought I read it somewhere reasonably believable (but don't remember where), but maybe it was some estimate not generally accepted. Thanks for correcting me.
You might have confused the full universe with the observable universe.
Right now, what we see at the "edge" of the observable universe is where it was less than 13.8 billion years away, because that light emitted back then from that spot took that time to reach us. But those things we're seeing have since moved away, and AFAIK they are now estimated to be 47 billion light-years away (for a total size of 94 billion light-years across), which seems close to your 1/4 number.
Well, that sounds completely reasonable. I'm aware of this difference, but maybe I misunderstood what I read. Or misremembered, it's been a while.