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always_bored t1_j9jqfrl wrote

What is the universe expanding in to? What's on the outside of it? What's on the outside of that? It makes me feel uneasy and annoyed that I will never know.

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oktaS0 t1_j9jvvpl wrote

To ease your mind, even if humanity lives for a million more years, I doubt we will ever know what's outside the universe. It's just so vast, we'll probably never even leave our galaxy as a species, the space between our galactic neighbors is too vast. Let alone traveling between galactic clusters.

But sometimes, not knowing everything is alright too. Our lives are a mere speck when compared to the life of the universe.

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always_bored t1_j9jwn89 wrote

It's just wild trying to conceptualize the scope of all existence and all the layers there could be moving outwards infinitely. Even if I got an answer to the what I would still wonder about the why. It's just a trippy thing to think about I guess.

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Andromeda321 t1_j9jx7ar wrote

Astronomer here! The universe isn’t expanding into anything. I think the reason a lot of people have trouble with this is a lot of analogies rely on a smaller 3D object expanding (like raisin bread in an oven that is baking, and the galaxies are like raisins in the loaf going away from each other- true but gives the wrong impression as a whole).

Instead, I think it’s easier to grasp if you imagine a number line: 1, 2, 3, …, infinity. Now let’s double the numbers in it: 2, 4, 6, …, infinity. You have made the values in your number line twice as big, but it still has the same number of numbers! That is what the expansion of the universe is like- not expanding into anything, just the thing itself is growing.

Hope that helps!

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