If the universe is expanding, doesn't that mean it hasn't existed forever?
913694
I agree that such an explanation is one possibility.  In fact, my failure to fully comprehend the Big Bang in a purely scientific manner is the only reason why I am an agnostic, and not an athiest.  I feel that I need to allow for the possibility.
727803
The known universe appears to be expanding. This does not mean it actually is expanding.\n\nIt might be gravity, or distortions in space affecting our perception of the universe.\n\nIt might be our misinterpretatons of the observations.\n\nThe observation is, that as we find galaxies farther away, they all are moving away, and the farther out they are, the faster they are moving away from us.\n\nDoes this mean the universe is expanding? Perhaps it means that the big bang occured at our location, thus everything is moving away from us. Yah, right....\n\nPerhaps galaxies that were moving at high speeds towards us, have already passed us, and are now moving away from us.\n\nPerhaps galaxies that are moving at high speeds towards us, have the electromagnetic energy from them shifted so much, that we cannot detect them by normal means. This might mean that there are the same amount of galaxies moving towards us as away from us.\n\nPerhaps, the universe was expanding, but is now collapsing, but it takes 15-20 billion years for the light to reach us, and we can only see that they were moving away 15-20 billion years ago.\n\nLots of maybes.
136202
By "is outer space infinite?" I assume you mean "is the universe infinite?" The answer to this question is NO. The universe and outer space is NOT infinite.\n\nOur current understanding on the origin of the universe tells us that the universe was created in a Big Bang, and that the universe has been expanding ever since (for about 15 billion years). Since light travels 186,000 miles per second, a light-year is about 6 trillion miles or 6 x 10^12.  So 15 billion light years is about 9 x 10^22 miles. This makes the universe very large indeed, but still NOT inifinite.\n\nBTW, this is just the size of our universe. There maybe other universes as other people have indicated, but there is no point talking about them, because we don't know for sure they exist but we are VERY sure that our universe exists.
710329
I hate to be the philosopher but that is why the question still reamins. No one can accuratly tell what lies beyond the boundries of the universe. Is there another? Is it just white noise? I believe that space is infinite and our "universe" could well be a part of a cluster of "multiverses". i was once told that the universe is expanding in the same way that a balloon is blown up. So what lies beyond our universe? I say space, space, and more space! \n\nIf our universe began with the "big bang" then that would mean that at some point the universe had collapsed upon itself, leaving empty space.
251586
No. It is space itself that is expanding. The problem people have in thinking about this stuff is that it is tricky to think about curved space-time. But that is the level at which things must be thought to really understand what is going on.\n\nSo an analogy might be in order. Imagine you are at the north pole (the Big Bang). Time will be represented by the latitude down from the north pole and space will be represented by latitude lines. In this (very simplified!) model, space is one dimensional (a circle of latitude) and as time goes on (as we move down in latitude), space expands until we reach the equator and then contracts again until there is a Big Crunch at the south pole.\n\nSo now ask the question 'where is space expanding into?'. The answer is either meaningless or at best, answered by saying 'into the future'.\n\nThis analogy is actually very good except for a couple of points: The actual universe may not have a maximum spacial size (the equator) but may continue to expand forever; also, the size of space (the latitude lines) may actually be infinite in extent. The model has a finite universe with both a beginning and an end. The real universe may be infinite and have no Big Crunch.\n\nOne very good aspect of the model is that it clarifies a problem a lot of people have. There is no 'before the Big Bang' just as there is no 'north of the north pole'.
514185
does the universe end?  no one knows yet.  the beginning of the universe is much better understood.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
410136
As a corollary to Chris' answer; It has recently been concluded that in fact the universe will go on expanding forever, there will be no reverse followed by a "big crunch" because there is not enough mass to precipitate this.\n\nAs for what the universe is "expanding into", this is a question based on the belief that all things must be finite, which is probably a limitation of our minds. There doesn't have to be a "there" there. If it makes you feel better you can imagine an infinite "ether" into which we are expanding.  \n\nAs a self-proffesed "curious" person you should probably read some Richard Feynman.
122538
Currently the universe is expanding. However, we are not sure yet whats going to happen in the future. This is because it is possible that the universe will constantly keep on expanding as it is right now. Or it is also possible that the gravitational pull of the universe will be so huge that it will collapse under its own gravity. Right now, we are almost at a point of intersection between these 2 cases and in a few thousand years we'll know exactly where this is going. Ofcourse, you and I wont be around to witness that, but astronomically its a small amount time.
574337
There are various conflicting theories about this.Some say universe will keep on expanding.Some say it will be a see saw .Some say it will all end in a big contraction.It's still a open question.
344481
well let us take a "logical" look....the big bang says that there was nothing, then something, and now everything is expanding away.  So how did things get farther away than time has permitted?  Hmmm...kind of a hole in the theory.
329152
Actually this will be unknown forever cause by that time the universe will reach to its "ultimate fate"\nby the way, you can go here to know...\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
664286
the universe is expanding i do believe that cuz all the evidence our scientists have gathered over the yrs points in this direction. \n\n    as to where it is expanding, i guess u mean into what. well no one knows. we haven't been able to see what is at the end of the universe so we can't know what is beyond it. the notion of an endless universe is not right because then the big bang theory would have to be wrong. see, if the universe were endless then it would immediately imply that it had no beginning which has been proved wrong.\n  \n   so your question is pretty hard to answer directly. but if u look at it in another way then u can say that the universe is filling up some empty space just like water fills up a bucket slowly as u increase the level of water in it.
737662
If you just want a short answer, I'll say this: if the universe is infinitely big, then the answer is simply that it isn't expanding into anything; instead, what is happening is that every region of the universe, every distance between every pair of galaxies, is being "stretched", but the overall size of the universe was infinitely big to begin with and continues to remain infinitely big as time goes on, so the universe's size doesn't change, and therefore it doesn't expand into anything. If, on the other hand, the universe has a finite size, then it may be legitimate to claim that there is something "outside of the universe" that the universe is expanding into. However, because we are, by definition, stuck within the space that makes up our universe and have no way to observe anything outside of it, this ceases to be a question that can be answered scientifically. So the answer in that case is that we really don't know what, if anything, the universe is expanding into.\n\nNow, for those of you who want a more comprehensive discussion:\n\nLet me begin by saying that "expanding" isn't really the best word to describe what is happening to the universe, although that is the word that is often used - a word choice which I think leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion regarding what is already a difficult topic! A more accurate word for what the universe is doing might be "stretching".\n\nThe difference between "expanding" and "stretching", for me at least, is that an "expanding universe" conjures up an image where there is a bunch of galaxies floating through space, all of which started at some center point and are now moving away from that point at very fast speeds. Therefore, the collection of galaxies (which we call the "universe") is expanding, and it is certainly fair to ask what it is expanding into.\n\nThe current theories of the universe, however, tell us that this is not the picture we should have in mind at all. Instead, the galaxies are in some sense stationary - they do not move through space the way that a ball moves through the air. The galaxies simply sit there. However, as time goes on, the space between the galaxies "stretches", sort of like what happens when you take a sheet of rubber and pull at it on both ends. Although the galaxies haven't moved through space at all, they get farther away from each other as time goes on because the space in between them has been stretched.\n\nOf course, when we think of space in everyday life, we don't think of it as something which is capable of stretching. Space, to us, just seems like something which is there, and which everything else in the universe exists within. But according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, space isn't really as simple as our common sense tells us. If we want to understand the actual way that the universe functions, we need to find some way to incorporate Einstein's ideas into our mental picture and imagine space as a more complicated entity which is capable of doing things like "bending" and "stretching".\n\nTo help us imagine this, a lot of people have come up with analogies for the universe in which space is represented by something more tangible. For example, there is the analogy with a sheet of rubber (or sometimes a balloon) that I mentioned above. My favorite analogy, though, involves imagining the universe as a gigantic blob of dough. Embedded in the dough are a bunch of raisins, spread throughout. The dough represents space, and the raisins represent the galaxies. (To the best of my knowledge, this analogy was originally proposed by Martin Gardner in his 1962 book Relativity for the Million.) We have no idea how big the dough is at this point - all we know is that it is very big, and we, sitting on some raisin somewhere inside it, are so far away from the "edge" that
870511
Nope, God is eternal, he has always existed. But remember, it is not possible that the Universe is infinite, that would be against scripture.\nI have really seen this answer before man, it's kind of sad.
55707
You get into Quantum Theory with your intrigue and there is no evidence to support that the universe is not infinate.\n\nHOWEVER, according to the Big Bang theory there was nothing and then there was something in a centralized location millions (billions) of years ago. At the speed that the universe is spreading outwards there has to be an end to it and scientists are trying to get telescopes powerful enough to see to the beginning of time.\n\nWhat lays on the other side? Nobody knows.
962950
This sort of question generates the highest percentage of false and meaningless responses of any other I know of in A&S forum. Here's the real poop. According to the BB model of the universe, the universe is expanding, but there is no boundary beyond which there is only empty space into which stars and galaxies are expanding into. This is a common misinterpretation due to a widespread inability to grasp the concept of curved space. On a large scale, every can consistently be presumed to be pretty much the same as it is in our neighborhood, although any conclusions about what lies beyond the observable universe are impossible. However, the volume of the universe may be either finite or infinite. This is simply not known. In General Relativity, finite *and* unbounded is not a contradiction.
594695
The universe cannot have an end, it has to be infinite and completely symetrical. This leads to three possible scenarios for its shape a saddle shape, a spheroid, and a flat plane. Different experiments have led scientists to believe that space is an infintie flat plane. The main reason why we know that if there were edges to space then we would have to me moving towards some objects and away from others. This is not the case as all observed entities are moving away from us. This leads to the assumption of a infinite expanding universe. \n\nAs far as our perception is concerned we are not inside of anything since the universe occupies all of the space that we can observe so the universe is everything. But if somehow you could step out of our universe into a higher dimension you dont know what you would see. There are some theorists who believe our universe is one of many universe. But since there is no way to see out of the universe we may never be able to answer this question. I agree that if you start thinking in this manner it can get quite perplexing\n\nTo the person who said space must have an edge to expand think of a baloon. If we go down a dimension imagine that our galaxy is a penny glued on the surface of a baloon. To us the baloon has no edges at all since we cannot see out into the third dimension, yet the baloon is expanding. So from our vantage point we live on an infinite surface that is expanding and causing nearby pennies to all travel away from us.