is the  UNIVERSE expanding? where did that "space" came from?
83937
Yes the universe is expanding, thanks to dark energy and perhaps the shape of space itself.\n\nThe space, as far as I know, existed already. From what I understand, our universe exists within a 5th dimension. The "big bang" was really the collision of two membranes that caused a big release of energy along the contact surface and the formation of all matter (initially in the form of a quark-gluon plasma). This matter has kept expanding since and can probably expand indefinately along the 5th dimensional membrane, but there's really no way to know. Some speculate that the reason the expansion of the universe is accelerating right now is that we are in for another collision at any moment, which will destroy all matter as we know it. Sleep tight.
626822
The Universe is expanding, but it doesn't have a phyiscal start, middle, or an end.  It's going to expand forever. Don't think about it, because it's not something our mind can really grasp.\n\nHere's an analogy that helped me:\n\nImagine the Universe as a two dimensional place.  The Universe is the surface of a rubber ball.  There's no start, finish, or middle.  As the Universe expands, the rubber ball fills with air.  Still no start, finish, or middle.\n\nFor a long time, it was unknown whether the Universe was open or closed, meaning whether the Universe would expand forever or eventually collapse back on itself back to nothing.\n\nThe hubble telescope proved that the Universe it open and would expand forever.
1119481
Wow! You do not ask for much do you...This is a very complicated question to answer...and frankly NO ONEyet fully understands how to answer it. \n\nAccording to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, which is our premier way of explaining how gravity works, there is no formal distinction between the description of what a gravitational field is, and what space-time is.\n\nEssentially, space is what we refer to as 3 of the 4 dimensions to a more comprehensive entity called the space-time continuum, and this continuum is itself just another name for the gravitational field of the universe. If you take away this gravitational field...space-time itself vanishes! \n\nTo ask where space comes from is the same as asking, according to general relativity, where this gravitational field came from originally, and that gets us to asking what were the circumstances that caused the Big Bang itself. We don't really know.
90108
I don't believe so.  If there is any merit to the Big Bang theory (and there's lots of scientific evidence in support of it), then the universe has a radius of currently about 14 billion light-years, and is expanding.  \n\nThat's pretty big, but it's not infinite.
51258
The Universe was created by an event known as the "BIG BANG" and has been increasing ever since.  There are many theories about what the universe will do in the future Ex. ever increasing, saddle shape, or will is contract and implode creating a massive black hole.\n\nVery cool and interesting stuff.\n\nCheck this site for more on the "BIG BANG"
5491
What you really mean to ask is, if the Universe is expanding, a phenomenon that by every conceivable standard of measurement and observation is universally (pun definitely intended) accepted by the scientific community to indeed be fact....\n\n...then what is the Universe exanding into????\n\nThe spooky thing is that no one knows. Science, with \nthe help of the Hubble Telescope has been able to see\nonly about 13 Billion light years out but the Universe itself is estimated to be about 14-15 Billion years old.\n\nThe universe is expanding into the vast emptiness of \nspace. Some scientists have speculated that there may be other universes that extend far beyond our own \nbut its mere speculation. NASA hopes that the next generation of Space Telescope technology scheduled to be launched in 2011, will have the capcity to observe  the very edge of the universe about 15 Billion years away and the very first light created in the aftermath of the Big Bang.
441363
In addition to memac63's pretty good answer, intergalactic space and the entire universe is filled with other "things" that don't necessarily have any solidity -- dark energy (the mysterious force that's causing the universes's expansion rate to increase), gravity (its range is infinite), and something called the cosmic microwave background radiation which is the "afterglow" from the Big Bang.\n\nGod should be spelled B-I-G B-A-N-G\nPBrax@netscape.com
988250
space is not infinite  although to us it is pretty much,  confused  great.  the universe is currently expanding, whether it will always continue to do so is due to critical density and mean density of the universe.     if critical density = (3i x hubbles constant^2)/ 8piG      if critical density is greater than average density then the universe will contineue to expand forever although it wont ever become infinite because the recession of the galaxies is limited by the maximum speed of light, and the fact that the universe had a begining therefore has a limmited size. \nalso  if average denisty is greater than critical density then the universe will be closed (hyperbolic) and the gravitational pull of the galxies will cause the universe expansion to slow and eventually contract. if critical density = average density then universe expansion will slow down universe would be flat, Most cosmologists believe that the universe is open and will continue to expand, which is nice, heres something nice to think about that if the universe is exapanding at the speed of light and the universe has been around for 1/Ho   1/hubblesconstant then the unverse is about 13 biliion years old this is 4.16x10^17 seconds  times the speed of light  3x10^8 ms-1 is  1.248x10^26m  in one direction   if the universe is spherical  which it isnt but lets pretent it is for an easier calculation then the Volume of the Universe is  4/3 pi r^3    is 8.142x10^78m^3   which is quite alot of space. As the amount of volume that real mass takes up is insignificant at these measurement  we can forget about it.   On the other hand light follows the shortest routes as mass distorts space it is likely that this answer is a bit smaller.  Oh and the universe isnt spherical its more like a ball thats been sat on,    So in summary the universe is not infinite but it is pretty much as it is likely to be expanding at the invariant maximum speed of light so your never going to hit the edge, infact there isnt an edge im not sure would happen if you got to the edge before the first radiation from the beggining of the big band reached the edge,   But i dont think youd get there,  well about your car  at the moment if your car takes up 6m^3  then theres enough space in the universe to hold 1.3x10^78  cars   but theres not enough matter in the universe to make that much cars  for that so dont worry too much about it, also in 1 second the universes volume increases by lots  uhhh     ok if the universe was 8.142x10^78m^3   rite this second  and the universe is exactly 13 billion years  old  (which its not) then in one second later the universe would be bigger yeas thats right  bigger by           ok one second is too small to make any effect on the calcullation,  but if it was a billion years older then it would be 1.016x10^79m^3  thats 2.02x10^78m^3 more than it was a billion years earlier which means it expansion is well logarithmic exponential whatever, the next billion year the universe would expand even more in the same time,   soo  thats even more parking spaces, if u look hardenough im sure you wiil find some.    No wonder i dont have a girlfreind.
751203
Another way of asking that same question is what existed before the Big Bang?  Did space even preexist then?  The Big Bang is believed to have originated from a singularity (similar to the center of a black hole) that included all the energy and matter of the entire universe.  The "dot?" containing the universe was so dense that none of the laws of physics as we know them likely existed.  Therefore, was it possible for space as we know it to exist?.  We know that space can be bent by nearby mass which is the reason the moon orbits the earth without a string attached like spinning a model plane.  Would a singularity so immense bend and suck in all the space?  The fact that we can measure out a cubic space with a yardstick merely means that we can create a mathematical model of a space or a practical space to fill but does not mean that we know the origin of the space or complete nature of the space.  It is likely that the Big Bang created its own space and it extends no further than the matter and light energy that has expanded to fill it.  Hope you don't want proof.
178542
That's a tough one.\n\nI like this approach: \n\n"This question is based on the ever popular misconception that the\nUniverse is some curved object embedded in a higher dimensional space,\nand that the Universe is expanding into this space.  This\nmisconception is probably fostered by the balloon analogy that shows a\n2-D spherical model of the Universe expanding in a 3-D space.\n\nWhile it is possible to think of the Universe this way, it is not\nnecessary, and---more importantly---there is nothing whatsoever that\nwe have measured or can measure that will show us anything about the\nlarger space.  Everything that we measure is within the Universe, and\nwe see no edge or boundary or center of expansion.  Thus the Universe\nis not expanding into anything that we can see, and this is not a\nprofitable thing to think about.  Just as Dali's Crucifixion is just a\n2-D picture of a 3-D object that represents the surface of a 4-D cube,\nremember that the balloon analogy is just a 2-D picture of a 3-D\nsituation that is supposed to help you think about a curved 3-D space,\nbut it does not mean that there is really a 4-D space that the\nUniverse is expanding into."\n\nAlso, read the wikipedia article!
686202
Universe theories talk about a finite and unlimited Universe. The Universe is unlimited because it has no boundaries. There is no edge, no end where a spaceship would have to stop. See it as a tiny bug walking on the surface of a big balloon. The ballon has a finite dimension, but the bug will never find the end, so it is unlimited from the bug's point of view.\nSo, the Universe can be expanding or contracting or staying the same size. This is a very important question to answer in modern astronomy. Latest studies say that it is expanding, but it has not been totally proved.\nAnd where it is expanding? The Universe is creating more space and time where there is nothing.
127551
Because the universe is a vacuum and there's nothing to stop it from expanding. This is assuming that the big bang theory is correct and it's expanding because of the explosion .
1055858
If you've ever wondered how big the universe is, you're not alone. Astronomers have long pondered this, too, and they've had a hard time figuring it out. Now an estimate has been made, and its a whopper.\n\nThe universe is at least 156 billion light-years wide. \n\nIn the new study, researchers examined primordial radiation imprinted on the cosmos. Among their conclusions is that it is less likely that there is some crazy cosmic "hall of mirrors" that would cause one object to be visible in two locations. And they've ruled out the idea that we could peer deep into space and time and see our own planet in its youth.\n\nFirst, let's see why the size is a number you've never heard of before.\n\nStretching reality\n\nThe universe is about 13.7 billion years old. Light reaching us from the earliest known galaxies has been travelling, therefore, for more than 13 billion years. So one might assume that the radius of the universe is 13.7 billion light-years and that the whole shebang is double that, or 27.4 billion light-years wide.\n\nBut the universe has been expanding ever since the beginning of time, when theorists believe it all sprang forth from an infinitely dense point in a Big Bang.\n\n"All the distance covered by the light in the early universe gets increased by the expansion of the universe," explains Neil Cornish, an astrophysicist at Montana State University. "Think of it like compound interest."\n\nNeed a visual? Imagine the universe just a million years after it was born, Cornish suggests. A batch of light travels for a year, covering one light-year. "At that time, the universe was about 1,000 times smaller than it is today," he said. "Thus, that one light-year has now stretched to become 1,000 light-years."\n\nAll the pieces add up to 78 billion-light-years. The light has not traveled that far, but "the starting point of a photon reaching us today after travelling for 13.7 billion years is now 78 billion light-years away," Cornish said. That would be the radius of the universe, and twice that -- 156 billion light-years -- is the diameter. That's based on a view going 90 percent of the way back in time, so it might be slightly larger.\n\n"It can be thought of as a spherical diameter is the usual sense," Cornish added comfortingly.\n\n(You might have heard the universe is almost surely flat, not spherical. The flatness refers to its geometry being "normal," like what is taught in school; two parallel lines can never cross.)
44234
Well there are lots of things I do not completely understand about the structure of the universe. \n\nFor example, some current theories are that our 4 dimensional space-time continuum is just part of a higher dimensional entity, where some of the other dimensions are rolled up. However, the time dimension of our 4 dimensional environment is clearly much different than the spatial dimensions, since we appear to only be able to travel in one direction along the time dimension, although many of the equations capturing the physical laws of our universe are invariant when we replace time with -time.\n\nThe expansion that people refer to when they say that the universe is expanding refers to the entire 4 dimensional space-time continuum and possibly some  of the other dimensions as well. This gets very hard to visualize. What I do is think of us as ants living on the surface of a balloon that is being slowly inflated, so the dimensions of the balloon are increasing, and distant parts of the ant's space are becoming increasingly distant. However, this is probably a very limited analogy. \n\nTo get a better picture, you need to consult someone who has thought very hard and very carefully about what the universe is, or supposedly is.
176516
This is an issue of science not religion. Science makes predictions based on observation, and if they come out right the theory is adopted. Based on Edwin Hubble's observations on the spectrum of faraway stars, where certain elements' lines were shifting to red along the time, the conclusion was withdrawn that they were increasing their distance from us, in all directions, therefore, the universe is expanding. Given the rate of expansion it was figured out that between 13 and 15 billion years ago all matter must have been clumped together. recent observations with anisotrophy probes showed that the background radiation of the cosmos dates back from 13.7 billion years. So at that time all matter/energy was clumped together and what we call a quantumn fluctuation set it in expansion. All matter was formed within a trillionth of a second followed by a quick expansion. This is proven by physics by means of mathematical equations that for the common mortal are just beyond mental reach, but fortunately some humans developed a very intelligent brain. Unless of course you prefer to think that a pink unicorn sneezed, and there you got the universe. In which case, be my guest, but deep down inside I'd pity you. (But in fact I know you don't believe such fanciful stories).
990249
The universe may very well be expanding into nothing. You see, we are used to thinking of expansion in terms of objects expanding into space (3D space) but the universe is space.\n\nThere is really no other way to explain it and it's something you might just have to accept though it's hard to envision.\n\nAnother explaination is that the universe may actually exist in a higher dimension (for example, 2D exists within 3D). According to membrane theory, the universe may have resulted from the collision of two "membranes" in a higher dimention and mass is the overlapping of those membranes.\n\nBut that is just one of the many possabilities.
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.