• Question: How many galaxies could there be that we don't know about?

    Asked by georgiareadman to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      We don’t know about all the galaxies but we do know there are around 100 billion in the visible Universe, far too many to count one by one. The visible Universe is 13.8 billion light years big and it’s edge is the furthest away we can see because the light coming from it has taken all the time since the Big Bang to get to us. So we have no idea what’s beyond it or even what’s going on at the far parts of the visible Universe right now because we’re of course looking into the past.

    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 16 Mar 2013:

      This is a really important question, since as we look farther and farther away we’re looking back in time too. As Martin said we don’t actually know how many we can’t see, but if we did it would be a really useful piece of information that would tell us about some of the first galaxies, like how and when they formed.
      g

Comments