• Question: What is outside the universe? What is it expanding into?

    Asked by J-Dog to Jack, Gem, Jermaine, Michelle, Steve on 12 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Gemma Taylor

      Gemma Taylor answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      I have absolutely no idea. Thinking about the enormity of the research totally boggles my mind – thinking about it makes my brain go blank!

    • Photo: Jermaine Ravalier

      Jermaine Ravalier answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      As a psychologist this isn’t my area of expertise, but I know that there’s so much we just don’t know. I think experts argue that there is infinite space – it just keeps going on and on and on. But that just confuses me – everything has got to have an end at some point, right?

    • Photo: Michelle Jamieson

      Michelle Jamieson answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      This area isn’t exactly my expertise (but I do take an interest in it). I couldn’t really say what’s outside our Universe, but there are some really interesting like the Fermi Paradox that theorise what there could be!

    • Photo: Steven Brown

      Steven Brown answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      Someone once explained to me that the universe is ‘finite, but boundless’. I have no idea what this means. I do like to imagine a brick wall – that space just stops, coming up against a brick wall. But surely there would need to be something behind the wall? You cannot just get ‘nothing’. I think this is what my friend meant, that the layout of space means we won’t ever come up against a brick wall – or a wall made of any material! – as it does not work that way. I try and focus my energy on the immediate problems down here on earth. It’s possible that in a generation or two though, if we do not do more to address climate change, that finding out more about space will be something that becomes really important.

    • Photo: Jack barton

      Jack barton answered on 13 Jun 2017:

      Well I know there’s a restaurant at the end of the universe so perhaps parking?

      In all seriousness, I don’t know what we could be expanding into but there is so much we don’t know about the space our universe is currently occupying.

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