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Observable universe
The observable universe is a spherical region of the Universe
Observable universe
comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth at the
present time, because electromagnetic radiation from these objects
has had time to reach Earth since the beginning of the
cosmological expansion. There are at least 2 trillion galaxies in the
observable universe,[7][8] containing more stars than all the grains
of sand on planet Earth.[9][10][11] Assuming the Universe is
isotropic, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is
roughly the same in every direction. That is, the observable
universe is a spherical volume (a ball) centered on the observer.
Every location in the Universe has its own observable universe,
which may or may not overlap with the one centered on Earth.

The word observable used in this sense does not refer to the
capability of modern technology to detect light or other
information from an object, or whether there is anything to be
detected. It refers to the physical limit created by the speed of light
Visualization of the whole observable universe.
itself. Because no signals can travel faster than light, any object
The scale is such that the fine grains represent
further away from us than light could travel in the age of the
collections of large numbers of superclusters.
universe (estimated as of 2015 around 13.799 ± 0.021 billion
The Virgo Supercluster – home of Milky Way –
years[5]) simply cannot be detected, as they have not reached us
is marked at the center, but is too small to be
yet. In practice, the limit on observation is not 13.799 billion light-
seen.
years for two reasons.[12] The first reason is that space itself is
expanding, so we can actually detect light from objects that were Diameter 8.8 × 1026 m
once close, but are now up to around 45.7 billion light years away (28.5 Gpc or 93 Gly)[1]
(rather than up to 13.799 billion light years away as might be Volume 4 × 1080 m3[2]
expected).[12] The second reason is that before the recombination Mass 1053 kg[3]
epoch, about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the Universe was (ordinary
filled with a plasma that was opaque to light, and photons were matter)
quickly re-absorbed by other particles, so we cannot see objects
Density 9.9 × 10−30 g/cm3 (equivalent to
from before that time using light or any other electromagnetic
6 protons per cubic meter of
radiation. Gravitational waves and neutrino background would
space)[4]
have been unaffected by this, and may be detectable from earlier
times. The surface of last scattering is the collection of points in
Age 13.799 ± 0.021 billion years[5]
space at the exact distance that photons from the time of photon Average 2.72548 K[6]
decoupling just reach us today. These are the photons we detect temperature
today as cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Contents Ordinary (baryonic) matter
However, with future technology, it may be possible to observe the (4.9%)
still older relic neutrino background, or even more distant events Dark matter (26.8%)
via gravitational waves (which also should move at the speed of Dark energy (68.3%)
light).

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Sometimes astrophysicists distinguish between the visible universe, which includes only signals emitted since
recombination – and the observable universe, which includes signals since the beginning of the cosmological expansion
(the Big Bang in traditional physical cosmology, the end of the inflationary epoch in modern cosmology).

According to calculations, the comoving distance (current proper distance) to particles from which the CMBR was
emitted, which represent the radius of the visible universe, is about 14.0 billion parsecs (about 45.7 billion light years),
while the comoving distance to the edge of the observable universe is about 14.3 billion parsecs (about 46.6 billion light
years),[13] about 2% larger. The radius of the observable universe is therefore estimated to be about 46.5 billion light-
years[14][15] and its diameter about 28.5 gigaparsecs (93 billion light-years 8.8 × 1023 kilometres or 5.5 × 1023 miles).[16]
The total mass of ordinary matter in the universe can be calculated using the critical density and the diameter of the
observable universe to be about 1.5×1053 kg.[17]

Contents
The Universe versus the observable universe
Size
Misconceptions on its size
Large-scale structure
Walls, filaments, nodes, and voids
End of Greatness
Observations
Cosmography of our cosmic neighborhood
Mass of ordinary matter
Estimates based on critical density
Matter content – number of atoms
Most distant objects
Horizons
See also
References
Further reading
External links

The Universe versus the observable universe

Some parts of the Universe are too far away for the light emitted since the Big Bang to have had enough time to reach
Earth, so these portions of the Universe lie outside the observable universe. In the future, light from distant galaxies will
have had more time to travel, so additional regions will become observable. However, due to Hubble's law, regions
sufficiently distant from the Earth are expanding away from it faster than the speed of light (special relativity prevents
nearby objects in the same local region from moving faster than the speed of light with respect to each other, but there is
no such constraint for distant objects when the space between them is expanding; see uses of the proper distance for a
discussion) and furthermore the expansion rate appears to be accelerating due to dark energy. Assuming dark energy
remains constant (an unchanging cosmological constant), so that the expansion rate of the Universe continues to
accelerate, there is a "future visibility limit" beyond which objects will never enter our observable universe at any time in
the infinite future, because light emitted by objects outside that limit would never reach the Earth. (A subtlety is that,

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because the Hubble parameter is decreasing with time, there can be cases where a galaxy that is receding from the Earth
just a bit faster than light does emit a signal that reaches the Earth eventually[15][18]). This future visibility limit is
calculated at a comoving distance of 19 billion parsecs (62 billion light years), assuming the Universe will keep expanding
forever, which implies the number of galaxies that we can ever theoretically observe in the infinite future (leaving aside the
issue that some may be impossible to observe in practice due to redshift, as discussed in the following paragraph) is only
larger than the number currently observable by a factor of 2.36.[19]

Though in principle more galaxies will become observable in the future, in

practice an increasing number of galaxies will become extremely
redshifted due to ongoing expansion, so much so that they will seem to
disappear from view and become invisible.[20][21][22] An additional
subtlety is that a galaxy at a given comoving distance is defined to lie
within the "observable universe" if we can receive signals emitted by the
galaxy at any age in its past history (say, a signal sent from the galaxy only
500 million years after the Big Bang), but because of the Universe's
expansion, there may be some later age at which a signal sent from the
same galaxy can never reach the Earth at any point in the infinite future
(so for example we might never see what the galaxy looked like 10 billion
years after the Big Bang),[23] even though it remains at the same comoving
distance (comoving distance is defined to be constant with time – unlike
Artist's logarithmic scale conception of
proper distance, which is used to define recession velocity due to the
the observable universe with the Solar
System at the center, inner and outer expansion of space), which is less than the comoving radius of the
planets, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, Alpha observable universe. This fact can be used to define a type of cosmic event
Centauri, Perseus Arm, Milky Way horizon whose distance from the Earth changes over time. For example,
galaxy, Andromeda galaxy, nearby the current distance to this horizon is about 16 billion light years,
galaxies, Cosmic Web, Cosmic meaning that a signal from an event happening at present can eventually
microwave radiation and the Big Bang's
reach the Earth in the future if the event is less than 16 billion light years
invisible plasma on the edge.
away, but the signal will never reach the Earth if the event is more than 16
billion light years away.[15]

Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "universe" to mean "observable universe".
This can be justified on the grounds that we can never know anything by direct experimentation about any part of the
Universe that is causally disconnected from the Earth, although many credible theories require a total universe much
larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe constitutes
a boundary on the Universe as a whole, nor do any of the mainstream cosmological models propose that the Universe has
any physical boundary in the first place, though some models propose it could be finite but unbounded, like a higher-
dimensional analogue of the 2D surface of a sphere that is finite in area but has no edge. It is plausible that the galaxies
within our observable universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the Universe. According to the theory
of cosmic inflation initially introduced by its founder, Alan Guth (and by D. Kazanas [24]), if it is assumed that inflation
began about 10−37 seconds after the Big Bang, then with the plausible assumption that the size of the Universe before the
inflation occurred was approximately equal to the speed of light times its age, that would suggest that at present the entire
universe's size is at least 3x1023 times the radius of the observable universe.[25] There are also lower estimates claiming
that the entire universe is in excess of 250 times larger than the observable universe[26] and also higher estimates implying
10122
that the universe is at least 1010 times larger than the observable universe.[27]

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If the Universe is finite but unbounded, it is also possible that the Universe is smaller than the observable universe. In this
case, what we take to be very distant galaxies may actually be duplicate images of nearby galaxies, formed by light that has
circumnavigated the Universe. It is difficult to test this hypothesis experimentally because different images of a galaxy
would show different eras in its history, and consequently might appear quite different. Bielewicz et al.[28] claims to
establish a lower bound of 27.9 gigaparsecs (91 billion light-years) on the diameter of the last scattering surface (since this
is only a lower bound, the paper leaves open the possibility that the whole universe is much larger, even infinite). This
value is based on matching-circle analysis of the WMAP 7 year data. This approach has been disputed.[29]

Size
The comoving distance from Earth to the edge of the observable
universe is about 14.26 gigaparsecs (46.5 billion light years or
4.40 × 1026 meters) in any direction. The observable universe is thus a
sphere with a diameter of about 28.5 gigaparsecs[30] (93 Gly or
8.8 × 1026 m).[31] Assuming that space is roughly flat, this size
corresponds to a comoving volume of about 1.22 × 104 Gpc3
(4.22 × 105 Gly3 or 3.57 × 1080 m3).[32]

The figures quoted above are distances now (in cosmological time), not
distances at the time the light was emitted. For example, the cosmic
microwave background radiation that we see right now was emitted at
the time of photon decoupling, estimated to have occurred about
380,000 years after the Big Bang,[33][34] which occurred around 13.8
billion years ago. This radiation was emitted by matter that has, in the
Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image of a region
intervening time, mostly condensed into galaxies, and those galaxies are of the observable universe (equivalent sky
now calculated to be about 46 billion light-years from us.[13][15] To area size shown in bottom left corner),
estimate the distance to that matter at the time the light was emitted, we near the constellation Fornax. Each spot is
may first note that according to the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson– a galaxy, consisting of billions of stars. The
light from the smallest, most red-shifted
Walker metric, which is used to model the expanding universe, if at the
galaxies originated nearly 14 billion years
present time we receive light with a redshift of z, then the scale factor at
ago.
the time the light was originally emitted is given by[35][36]

WMAP nine-year results combined with other measurements give the redshift of photon decoupling as
z = 1 091.64 ± 0.47,[37] which implies that the scale factor at the time of photon decoupling would be 1⁄1092.64. So if the
matter that originally emitted the oldest CMBR photons has a present distance of 46 billion light years, then at the time of
decoupling when the photons were originally emitted, the distance would have been only about 42 million light-years.

Misconceptions on its size

Many secondary sources have reported a wide variety of incorrect figures for the size of the visible universe. Some of these
figures are listed below, with brief descriptions of possible reasons for misconceptions about them.

13.8 billion light-years

The age of the universe is estimated to be 13.8 billion years. While it is commonly understood
that nothing can accelerate to velocities equal to or greater than that of light, it is a common
misconception that the radius of the observable universe must therefore amount to only 13.8
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billion light-years. This reasoning would only make sense if the

flat, static Minkowski spacetime conception under special
relativity were correct. In the real universe, spacetime is curved in
a way that corresponds to the expansion of space, as evidenced
by Hubble's law. Distances obtained as the speed of light
multiplied by a cosmological time interval have no direct physical
significance.[38]

An example of one of the most 15.8 billion light-years

common misconceptions about the This is obtained in the same way as the 13.8 billion light year
size of the observable universe. figure, but starting from an incorrect age of the universe that the
This plaque appears at the Rose popular press reported in mid-2006.[39][40] For an analysis of this
Center for Earth and Space in New claim and the paper that prompted it, see the following reference
York City. at the end of this article.[41]

27.6 billion light-years

This is a diameter obtained from the (incorrect) radius of 13.8 billion light-years.

78 billion light-years
In 2003, Cornish et al.[42] found this lower bound for the diameter of the whole universe (not just
the observable part), if we postulate that the universe is finite in size due to its having a
nontrivial topology,[43][44] with this lower bound based on the estimated current distance
between points that we can see on opposite sides of the cosmic microwave background
radiation (CMBR). If the whole universe is smaller than this sphere, then light has had time to
circumnavigate it since the Big Bang, producing multiple images of distant points in the CMBR,
which would show up as patterns of repeating circles.[45] Cornish et al. looked for such an effect
at scales of up to 24 gigaparsecs (78 Gly or 7.4 × 1026 m) and failed to find it, and suggested
that if they could extend their search to all possible orientations, they would then "be able to
exclude the possibility that we live in a universe smaller than 24 Gpc in diameter". The authors
also estimated that with "lower noise and higher resolution CMB maps (from WMAP's extended
mission and from Planck), we will be able to search for smaller circles and extend the limit to
~28 Gpc."[42] This estimate of the maximum lower bound that can be established by future
observations corresponds to a radius of 14 gigaparsecs, or around 46 billion light years, about
the same as the figure for the radius of the visible universe (whose radius is defined by the
CMBR sphere) given in the opening section. A 2012 preprint by most of the same authors as
the Cornish et al. paper has extended the current lower bound to a diameter of 98.5% the
diameter of the CMBR sphere, or about 26 Gpc.[46]

156 billion light-years

This figure was obtained by doubling 78 billion light-years on the assumption that it is a
radius.[47] Because 78 billion light-years is already a diameter (the original paper by Cornish et
al. says, "By extending the search to all possible orientations, we will be able to exclude the
possibility that we live in a universe smaller than 24 Gpc in diameter," and 24 Gpc is 78 billion
light years),[42] the doubled figure is incorrect. This figure was very widely reported.[47][48][49] A
press release from Montana State University–Bozeman, where Cornish works as an
astrophysicist, noted the error when discussing a story that had appeared in Discover
magazine, saying "Discover mistakenly reported that the universe was 156 billion light-years
wide, thinking that 78 billion was the radius of the universe instead of its diameter."[50] As noted
above, 78 billion was also incorrect.

180 billion light-years

This estimate combines the erroneous 156-billion-light-year figure with evidence that the M33
Galaxy is actually fifteen percent farther away than previous estimates and that, therefore, the
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Hubble constant is fifteen percent smaller.[51] The 180-billion figure is obtained by adding 15%
to 156 billion light years.

Large-scale structure
Sky surveys and mappings of the various wavelength bands of electromagnetic radiation (in particular 21-cm emission)
have yielded much information on the content and character of the universe's structure. The organization of structure
appears to follow as a hierarchical model with organization up to the scale of superclusters and filaments. Larger than this
(at scales between 30–200 megaparsecs[52]), there seems to be no continued structure, a phenomenon that has been
referred to as the End of Greatness.[53]

Walls, filaments, nodes, and voids

The organization of structure arguably begins at the stellar level,
though most cosmologists rarely address astrophysics on that
scale. Stars are organized into galaxies, which in turn form galaxy
groups, galaxy clusters, superclusters, sheets, walls and
filaments, which are separated by immense voids, creating a vast
foam-like structure[54] sometimes called the "cosmic web". Prior
to 1989, it was commonly assumed that virialized galaxy clusters
were the largest structures in existence, and that they were
distributed more or less uniformly throughout the Universe in
every direction. However, since the early 1980s, more and more
DTFE reconstruction of the inner parts of the 2dF
structures have been discovered. In 1983, Adrian Webster
Galaxy Redshift Survey
identified the Webster LQG, a large quasar group consisting of 5
quasars. The discovery was the first identification of a large-scale
structure, and has expanded the information about the known grouping of matter in the Universe. In 1987, Robert Brent
Tully identified the Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex, the galaxy filament in which the Milky Way resides. It is about 1
billion light years across. That same year, an unusually large region with no galaxies was discovered, the Giant Void, which
measures 1.3 billion light years across. Based on redshift survey data, in 1989 Margaret Geller and John Huchra
discovered the "Great Wall",[55] a sheet of galaxies more than 500 million light-years long and 200 million light-years
wide, but only 15 million light-years thick. The existence of this structure escaped notice for so long because it requires
locating the position of galaxies in three dimensions, which involves combining location information about the galaxies
with distance information from redshifts. Two years later, astronomers Roger G. Clowes and Luis E. Campusano
discovered the Clowes–Campusano LQG, a large quasar group measuring two billion light years at its widest point, and
was the largest known structure in the Universe at the time of its announcement. In April 2003, another large-scale
structure was discovered, the Sloan Great Wall. In August 2007, a possible supervoid was detected in the constellation
Eridanus.[56] It coincides with the 'CMB cold spot', a cold region in the microwave sky that is highly improbable under the
currently favored cosmological model. This supervoid could cause the cold spot, but to do so it would have to be
improbably big, possibly a billion light-years across, almost as big as the Giant Void mentioned above.

Another large-scale structure is the Newfound Blob, a collection of galaxies and enormous gas bubbles that measures
about 200 million light years across.

In 2011, a large quasar group was discovered, U1.11, measuring about 2.5 billion light years across. On January 11, 2013,
another large quasar group, the Huge-LQG, was discovered, which was measured to be four billion light-years across, the
largest known structure in the Universe at that time.[57] In November 2013, astronomers discovered the Hercules–Corona

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Borealis Great Wall,[58][59] an even bigger structure twice as large as the

former. It was defined by the mapping of gamma-ray bursts.[58][60]

End of Greatness
The End of Greatness is an observational scale discovered at roughly 100 Mpc
(roughly 300 million lightyears) where the lumpiness seen in the large-scale
structure of the universe is homogenized and isotropized in accordance with
the Cosmological Principle.[53] At this scale, no pseudo-random fractalness is
Computer simulated image of an
apparent.[61] The superclusters and filaments seen in smaller surveys are area of space more than 50 million
randomized to the extent that the smooth distribution of the Universe is light years across, presenting a
visually apparent. It was not until the redshift surveys of the 1990s were possible large-scale distribution of
completed that this scale could accurately be observed.[53] light sources in the universe –
precise relative contributions of
galaxies and quasars are unclear.
Observations
Another indicator of large-scale structure is the
'Lyman-alpha forest'. This is a collection of
absorption lines that appear in the spectra of
light from quasars, which are interpreted as
indicating the existence of huge thin sheets of
intergalactic (mostly hydrogen) gas. These
sheets appear to be associated with the
formation of new galaxies.

Caution is required in describing structures on a

cosmic scale because things are often different
"Panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the
from how they appear. Gravitational lensing
distribution of galaxies beyond the Milky Way. The image is
(bending of light by gravitation) can make an
derived from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC) – more
image appear to originate in a different direction than 1.5 million galaxies, and the Point Source Catalog (PSC) –
from its real source. This is caused when nearly 0.5 billion Milky Way stars. The galaxies are color-coded by
foreground objects (such as galaxies) curve 'redshift' obtained from the UGC, CfA, Tully NBGC, LCRS, 2dF,
surrounding spacetime (as predicted by general 6dFGS, and SDSS surveys (and from various observations
compiled by the NASA Extragalactic Database), or photo-
relativity), and deflect passing light rays. Rather
metrically deduced from the K band (2.2 μm). Blue are the nearest
usefully, strong gravitational lensing can
sources (z < 0.01); green are at moderate distances (0.01 < z <
sometimes magnify distant galaxies, making 0.04) and red are the most distant sources that 2MASS resolves
them easier to detect. Weak lensing (0.04 < z < 0.1). The map is projected with an equal area Aitoff in
(gravitational shear) by the intervening universe the Galactic system (Milky Way at center)." [62]
in general also subtly changes the observed
large-scale structure. As of 2004, measurements
of this subtle shear showed considerable promise as a test of cosmological models.

The large-scale structure of the Universe also looks different if one only uses redshift to measure distances to galaxies. For
example, galaxies behind a galaxy cluster are attracted to it, and so fall towards it, and so are slightly blueshifted
(compared to how they would be if there were no cluster) On the near side, things are slightly redshifted. Thus, the
environment of the cluster looks a bit squashed if using redshifts to measure distance. An opposite effect works on the

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galaxies already within a cluster: the galaxies have some random motion around the cluster center, and when these
random motions are converted to redshifts, the cluster appears elongated. This creates a "finger of God" – the illusion of a
long chain of galaxies pointed at the Earth.

Cosmography of our cosmic neighborhood

At the centre of the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster, a gravitational anomaly called the Great Attractor affects the motion of
galaxies over a region hundreds of millions of light-years across. These galaxies are all redshifted, in accordance with
Hubble's law. This indicates that they are receding from us and from each other, but the variations in their redshift are
sufficient to reveal the existence of a concentration of mass equivalent to tens of thousands of galaxies.

The Great Attractor, discovered in 1986, lies at a distance of between 150 million and 250 million light-years (250 million
is the most recent estimate), in the direction of the Hydra and Centaurus constellations. In its vicinity there is a
preponderance of large old galaxies, many of which are colliding with their neighbours, or radiating large amounts of radio
waves.

In 1987, astronomer R. Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii's Institute of Astronomy identified what he called the
Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex, a structure one billion light years long and 150 million light years across in which, he
claimed, the Local Supercluster was embedded.[63][64]

Mass of ordinary matter

The mass of the observable Universe is often quoted as
1050 tonnes or 1053 kg.[3] In this context, mass refers to Nature timeline
ordinary matter and includes the interstellar medium view • discuss •
(ISM) and the intergalactic medium (IGM). However, it 0— ←Earliest humans
excludes dark matter and dark energy. This quoted Land life
– ←Cambrian explosion
value for the mass of ordinary matter in the Universe -1 — Multicellular ←Earliest sexual
can be estimated based on critical density. The –
L life reproduction
calculations are for the observable universe only as the -2 — i
volume of the whole is unknown and may be infinite. – f ←Atmospheric oxygen
e photosynthesis
-3 —
– ←Earliest oxygen
Estimates based on critical density
-4 — Single-celled life
Critical density is the energy density for which the water
←Earliest life
– ←Earliest Earth
universe is flat.[65] If there is no dark energy, it is also Solar System (−4.54)
-5 —
the density for which the expansion of the Universe is –
poised between continued expansion and collapse.[66] -6 — cosmic speed-up
From the Friedmann equations, the value for critical – ←Alpha Centauri
density, is:[67] -7 —
forms

–P
r
-8 — i
Dark matter
–m Dark energy
o ←Milky Way Galaxy
-9 — r spiral arms form
where G is the gravitational constant and H0 is the
–d
present value of the Hubble constant. The current value i
-10 — a ←Andromeda Galaxy
for H0, due to the European Space Agency's Planck forms
– l
-11 — cosmic expansion
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-11 — cosmic expansion
Telescope, is H0 = 67.15 kilometers per second per mega
– ←Omega Centauri
parsec. This gives a critical density of forms
-12 —
0.85 × 10−26 kg/m3 (commonly quoted as about 5
–
hydrogen atoms per cubic meter). This density includes
-13 — ←Earliest quasar/sbh
four significant types of energy/mass: ordinary matter Earliest light
←Earliest galaxy
Earliest gravity
(4.8%), neutrinos (0.1%), cold dark matter (26.8%), and ←Earliest universe
dark energy (68.3%).[68] Note that although neutrinos
Axis scale: billions of years ago.
(−13.80)
Also see: Human timeline and Life timeline
are defined as particles like electrons, they are listed
separately because they are difficult to detect and so
different from ordinary matter. The density of ordinary matter, as measured by Planck, is 4.8% of the total critical density
or 4.08 × 10−28 kg/m3. To convert this density to mass we must multiply by volume, a value based on the radius of the
"observable universe". Since the Universe has been expanding for 13.8 billion years, the comoving distance (radius) is now
about 46.6 billion light years. Thus, volume ( 43 πr3) equals 3.58 × 1080 m3 and the mass of ordinary matter equals density
(4.08 × 10−28 kg/m3) times volume (3.58 × 1080 m3) or 1.46 × 1053 kg.

Matter content – number of atoms

Assuming the mass of ordinary matter is about 1.45 × 1053 kg (refer to previous section) and assuming all atoms are
hydrogen atoms (which in reality make up about 74% of all atoms in our galaxy by mass, see Abundance of the chemical
elements), calculating the estimated total number of atoms in the observable Universe is straightforward. Divide the mass
of ordinary matter by the mass of a hydrogen atom (1.45 × 1053 kg divided by 1.67 × 10−27 kg). The result is approximately
1080 hydrogen atoms.

Most distant objects

The most distant astronomical object yet announced as of January 2011 is a galaxy candidate classified UDFj-39546284.
In 2009, a gamma ray burst, GRB 090423, was found to have a redshift of 8.2, which indicates that the collapsing star that
caused it exploded when the Universe was only 630 million years old.[69] The burst happened approximately 13 billion
years ago,[70] so a distance of about 13 billion light years was widely quoted in the media (or sometimes a more precise
figure of 13.035 billion light years),[69] though this would be the "light travel distance" (see Distance measures
(cosmology)) rather than the "proper distance" used in both Hubble's law and in defining the size of the observable
universe (cosmologist Ned Wright argues against the common use of light travel distance in astronomical press releases
on this page (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/Dltt_is_Dumb.html), and at the bottom of the page offers online
calculators that can be used to calculate the current proper distance to a distant object in a flat universe based on either
the redshift z or the light travel time). The proper distance for a redshift of 8.2 would be about 9.2 Gpc,[71] or about 30
billion light years. Another record-holder for most distant object is a galaxy observed through and located beyond Abell
2218, also with a light travel distance of approximately 13 billion light years from Earth, with observations from the
Hubble telescope indicating a redshift between 6.6 and 7.1, and observations from Keck telescopes indicating a redshift
towards the upper end of this range, around 7.[72] The galaxy's light now observable on Earth would have begun to
emanate from its source about 750 million years after the Big Bang.[73]

Horizons
The limit of observability in our universe is set by a set of cosmological horizons which limit—based on various physical
constraints—the extent to which we can obtain information about various events in the Universe. The most famous
horizon is the particle horizon which sets a limit on the precise distance that can be seen due to the finite age of the

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Universe. Additional horizons are associated with the possible future extent of observations (larger than the particle
horizon owing to the expansion of space), an "optical horizon" at the surface of last scattering, and associated horizons
with the surface of last scattering for neutrinos and gravitational waves.

A diagram of our location in the observable universe. (Alternative image.)

See also
Bolshoi Cosmological Simulation Illustris project
Causality (physics) Multiverse
Chronology of the universe Orders of magnitude (length)
Dark flow Timeline of the Big Bang
Hubble volume

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Further reading
Vicent J. Martínez; Jean-Luc Starck; Enn Saar; David L. Donoho; et al. (2005). "Morphology Of The Galaxy
Distribution From Wavelet Denoising". The Astrophysical Journal. 634 (2): 744–755. arXiv:astro-ph/0508326 (https://a
rxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508326)  . Bibcode:2005ApJ...634..744M (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...634..744
M). doi:10.1086/497125 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F497125).
Mureika, J. R. & Dyer, C. C. (2004). "Review: Multifractal Analysis of Packed Swiss Cheese Cosmologies". General
Relativity and Gravitation. 36 (1): 151–184. arXiv:gr-qc/0505083 (https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0505083)  .
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External links
Calculating the total mass of ordinary matter in the universe, what you always wanted to know (https://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=K8V8Iy9Tozk)
"Millennium Simulation" of structure forming (http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/millennium/) – Max Planck
Institute of Astrophysics, Garching, Germany
Visualisations of large-scale structure: animated spins of groups, clusters, filaments and voids (http://www.physics.usy
d.edu.au/sifa/MSPM/An) – identified in SDSS data by MSPM (Sydney Institute for Astronomy)
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Sloan Great Wall: Largest Known Structure? (7 November 2007) (https://ap
od.nasa.gov/apod/ap071107.html)
Cosmology FAQ (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html)
Forming Galaxies Captured In The Young Universe By Hubble, VLT & Spitzer (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/
2007/04/070419125240.htm)
NASA featured Images and Galleries (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery)

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2/14/2018 Observable universe - Wikipedia

Star Survey reaches 70 sextillion (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/22/stars.survey/)

Animation of the cosmic light horizon (http://www.phys.ksu.edu/personal/gahs/phys191/horizon.html)
Inflation and the Cosmic Microwave Background by Charles Lineweaver (https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0305179)
Logarithmic Maps of the Universe (http://www.astro.princeton.edu/universe/)
List of publications of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS/)
The Universe Within 14 Billion Light Years – NASA Atlas of the Universe (http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/universe.
html) – Note, this map only gives a rough cosmographical estimate of the expected distribution of superclusters within
the observable universe; very little actual mapping has been done beyond a distance of one billion light years.
Video: "The Known Universe", from the American Museum of Natural History (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jy
mDn0W6U)
NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/)
Cosmography of the Local Universe (http://irfu.cea.fr/cosmography) at irfu.cea.fr (17:35) (arXiv (https://arxiv.org/abs/1
306.0091))
Size and age of the Universe (http://www.astronoo.com/en/articles/size-of-the-universe.html) – at Astronoo

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