13.7 billion light years.  Is that in all directions?
475004
It is in all directions.  The expansion of the universe is happening at all points, so there is no center to be found, the reason why we see to 13.7 billion light years in all directions is that is how old the universe is, we can only see to distances that light would have travelled in that amount of time, hence a large 13.7 billion lightyear bubbles around us.\n\nSpace is expanding at all points, thus at each place in the universe this "bubble" will be seen - no one is at the center.
92471
As large as you can imagine, and possibly larger than that! It depends what you want to call The Universe- is it as long as the distance to the farthest object known to us? Or are there other objects beyond that? If you measure to the farthest visible object, the universe is approximately 12-15 billion light-years away, in all directions.
329537
5 billion years or so.\n\nhttp://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/sun/sundeath.shtml
162749
The light had to travel 14 billion years.  Earth travels much slowly.
629998
The number of stars in the visible universe is estimated to be 70 sextillion, or 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [seven followed by twenty-two zeros].\n\nor\n\nWikipedia claims that the observable universe contains about 7 × 1022 stars, organized in about 100 billion galaxies, which themselves form clusters and superclusters. An Ask the Scientist response to this question claimed that there are about 10 billion (10^10) stars in an average galaxy, \nand there are about 10 billion galaxies that we can observe in the universe, so the answer is 100 billion billion or 10^20. I don't think it is an issue that we have a precise answer for as yet.
16179
It is approximately 2.2 million light years away.  A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers), so multiply this by 2.2 million and you have the distance in miles/kilometers.
47368
First we have to distinguish between the "observable" ("known") universe and the absolute (all) universe. We can only speculate about the size of the entire universe, but for the observable universe most scientists have agreed that it's 13.7-billion light years in size.
670386
Count it's rings.\n\nSeriously, it's very difficult to know for absolute sure.  BUt recently scientists..cosmologists to be more precise...believe they are 95% certain of this...\n\n"In a study published today in the journal Science, a team of researchers says the universe is between 11.2 billion and 20 billion years old."\n\n"The new calculations, by Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and Brian Chaboyer at Dartmouth College, involved new information about old star clusters in our galaxy and a better understanding of how stars evolve. It was based on when stars are thought to end the main sequence of their lives, a point at which they've used up the hydrogen that fuels thermonuclear fusion and therefore begin to dim."
95960
I believe all the planets in our solar system formed about the same time, around 5 and a half billion years ago or so. I believe there is a younger solar system than ours around the star called Vega. It is in our galaxy and I believe it is around 26 light years away, the speed of light being 186,000 miles a second. The distance is the number of miles light would travel in 26 years, if that makes any sense. Vega is a blue star, a very young star. Our sun is a G star, a bit older. The stars are categorized O,B,A,F,G,K,M. The way to remember is the phrase "Oh, be a fine girl kiss me" with each letter corresponding to star categories. Vega is an O star, the youngest. I hope that isn't too complicated, I know your six.\n\nWhat you might do is get some colored balls to represent each of the star categories, some paint (in case the ball is the wrong color), and some cardboard, sticks, and glue. The M star is a red supergiant so a red dodge ball, the K is a red giant but not supergiant, so a red delicious apple, the O is blue-white, the G is golden, yellow-orange like our sun. The B, A, and F stars I do not know much about.
183513
There is disagreement over whether the universe is indeed finite or infinite in spatial extent and volume.\n\nHowever, the observable universe, consisting of all locations that could have affected us since the Big Bang given the finite speed of light, is certainly finite. The edge of the cosmic light horizon is 13.7 billion light years (4.19 Gpc) distant. The present distance (comoving distance) to the edge of the observable universe is larger, due to the ever increasing rate at which the universe has been expanding; it is estimated to be about 78 billion light years (7.8 × 1010 light years, or 7.4 × 1026 m). This would make the comoving volume, of the known universe, equal to 1.9 × 1033 cubic light years (assuming this region is perfectly spherical). The observable universe contains about 7 × 1022 stars, organized in about 100 billion galaxies, which themselves form clusters and superclusters. The number of galaxies may be even larger, based on the Hubble Deep Field observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope discovered galaxies such as Abell 1835 IR1916, which are over 13 billion light years from Earth.\n\nBoth popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "universe" when they really mean "observable universe". This is because unobservable physical phenomena are scientifically irrelevant; that is, they cannot affect any events that we can perceive. See also Causality (physics).
1029269
Actually, 3000 thousand light years (= 3 million light years) is relatively nearby in cosmic terms. The galaxy M33 is at about that distance and is visible to the naked eye in a very dark sky.\n\nAt distances of over ten billion light years we can see galaxies typical of the early universe, and beyond that, the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR).
134220
We believe the universe to be infinite in size.  In some ways, we know how small the universe is not.\n\nThe universe is atleast 13 billion light years in radius from the earth. The furthest galaxy seen to date dates from 13 billion years ago.  This means that the light from that galaxy took 13 billion years to reach us and so, at the speed of ... uh ... light, it was 13 billion light years away from earth.  This is 76,424,219,300,000,000,000,000 miles away or 76 sextillion miles away.\n\nThe problem is seeing past that distance because Hubble discovered that light keeps shifting toward the red part of the spectrum and beyond as the universe continues to expand.  There could be stuff past where we can see but we don't know because we can't see it.\n\nAnother reason I say minimum is because after the light left that galaxy 13 billion years ago, we believe that the galaxy continued to move away from us during that 13 billion year period due to the expansion of the universe.  So, it is over 13 billion light years away from us today and the light from that galaxy "today" would take over 13 billion years to reach us.\n\nBut in reediting this just now, I realized that there might actually be a stretching effect for the distance due to the time that has passed.  In otherwords, the distance that the light travelled in the first year (13 billion years ago) has since expanded (causing the redshift) and so will be more miles in distance than the light year travelled in the most recent year till now.  Which may be why articles on the oldest galaxies seen never mention distance but only mention time or age.  They never say the observed galaxy is 13B light years away, they say that it is 13B years old and leave it at that. Let's just ignore this plausible issue for the moment.  \n\nWith out extrapolating, you might calculate the volume of a sphere that is 13 billion light years in radius and use that as a lower bound for the size of the universe:\n\n4/3 radius^3 => 5.9*10^68 cubic miles.  Don't know about you but I can't even comprehend how big that is.\n\nAs for who or what created it, well, that depends on what you believe and what evidence you allow to modify that belief.\n\nI liked the article in March 2005 Scientific American on the "Misconceptions of the Big Bang".
807791
Well, within 1 lightyear of earth there isn't anything we know of. The nearest Star is Alpha Proxima (or is Centauri B closer now?) and its around 4.5 light years away.\n\nThere are around 100 stars within 50 lightyears of earth and that number grows as you move away. You wont find any other clusters or galaxies until you get to around 2.5 million light years with the closest Galaxy, Andromeda. - the nearest supercluster is more on the order of 50 million light years.
4216
About 13.7 billion years ago.
332036
the radius of the observable universe is about 46 billion lightyears.  currently, the expansion of the universe is accelerating not decelerating.  any observers existing in the very distant future will only be able to see bodies within the galaxy that is the result of the merger of the milky way and andromeda.\n\nmaybe these sites will help.\nhttp://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni.html\nhttp://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_01.htm\nhttp://universeadventure.org/\nhttp://www-supernova.lbl.gov/\n\ni have something else for you to think about.  the universe is 13.7 billion years old yet has a radius of 46 billion lightyears.
53656
Around 4.57 billion years old.
6235
Well its not the time of the universe that appears to change, its the age of the particle itself that changes. In this case, in the 13.5 billion years the universe has been around, only 6.04 million years will have gone by to the particle.\n\nLet me explain how i got it: the formula is t'=t/sqrt(1-c^2/v^2) where t' is the time for an outside observer, t is the time for the particle moving at the velocity, c is the speed of light, v is the velocity of the particle, and ^2 means squared and sqrt means square root.\n\nthe universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old, assuming that this particle has been traveling at this speed since the beginning, that would make our t' 13.7 billion, and we are solving for t.  Now, v would just be .9999999 times the speed of light which is 299792458 m/s.  this means that the velocity of the particle is 299792428 m/s.  plugging into the formula:\n\n13.5 x 10^9 = t/sqrt(1-299792458^2/299792428^2) which would make t equal to 6.04 x 10^6 meaning that the amount of time that has past for this particle would only be 6.04 million years. (note: you need a graphing calculator, or maybe  a scientific one) to actually get an answer because when you divide v^2/c^2 you get a number so insanely close to one that unless the calculator has a LOT of places, it will just say 1) Usually time dialation does not work to this extreme because we usually sayy like 95% the speed of light or something, and you have a lot of 9's there after the decimal.  The more you put, the less the time will be.