Whether we like it or not, the Universe could be far bigger than what astronomers managed to measure with their sophisticated tools. The observable Universe has an estimated diameter of 93 billion light-years. Even if scientists invent much more powerful telescopes, they still won’t be able to see beyond the observable Universe. The reason is simple: light didn’t have enough time during the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang to reach us.
But there’s so much to learn and discover about the observable Universe. The human mind could never comprehend the fullness, but the good news is that it can still grasp certain parts.
New map presents the Universe in X-ray radiation
Astronomers managed to create an amazing X-ray map of the observable Universe by using eROSITA (Extended Roentgen Survey with Imaging Telescope Array), which is an instrument mounted on the satellite mission Spectrum-Röntgen-Gamma.
Credits to: Hermann Brunner, Jeremy Sanders, eSASS team (MPE); Eugene Churazov, Marat Gilfanov (IKI)
In order to bring the outcome, the scientists had been looking for sources of X-ray radiation in the sky for six months. The astronomers looked for X-ray sources like black holes, galaxies and supernovas.
Kirpal Nandra, who is head of the high-energy astrophysics group at MPE, declared:
With a million sources in just six months, eROSITA has already revolutionized X-ray astronomy, but this is just a taste of what’s to come,
This combination of sky area and depth is transformational. We are already sampling a cosmological volume of the hot Universe much larger than has been possible before. Over the next few years, we’ll be able to probe even further, out to where the first giant cosmic structures and supermassive black holes were forming.
An age-old astronomical and philosophical dilemma found its answer for quite a while thanks to science: the Universe is indeed finite, not infinite as most people thought. Trying to find out what could exist beyond the cosmic boundaries, wherever they are, seems like the next big challenge for astronomy.
