Crazy Astronaut PollFollow

Visitation by actual macroscopic living organisms is quite unlikely. Visitation by a probe is unlikely. Reception of a signal from such a civilization, by contrast, is a mystery as to why we aren't flooded with them.

Distances are vast and energies required to reach high speeds and high time dilation are immense. There could be new (to us) physical laws, which is why I would put it at best at quite unlikely.

Not if you believe Bing Bang theory and in the presently expanding universe. It's Bloodymuthurfuntingly HUGE. But not infinite. If it keeps expanding, I suppose it could sort of keep going forever, but given the eventual Heat "Death" Of The Universe, it's going to be a very uninteresting place at that point.

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed thereis
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth

Nexa

If the universe isn't infinite, what's outside exactly?

Fun fact (well, accepted theory I guess since there's no way to got out and prove it). It doesn't matter how big/small the universe is, because it's expanding at the speed of light, which happens to be the universal speed limit of everything. It is quite impossible to reach the end of the universe.

Frankly I don't think there is an end. I think universes will turn out to be more like galaxies and there are actually many of them with empty space in between.

Edited, Aug 1st 2008 1:41pm by Yodabunny

Glad he chose such an erudite broadcaster to announce this - I mean, why publish an article in 'Nature' when you can tell it to a tongue-in-cheek Heavy Metal radio station in Britainland that literally hundreds of listeners.

Edited, Aug 1st 2008 4:13pm by Nobby