The ever-expanding universe, a lie?

Aanya Singhal

You might've heard your friend or your teacher mention how the universe never stops growing in a conversation or class. Did it make you curious? Isn't the universe endless? That's what we always thought as kids and no one corrected us otherwise. And if its endless how does it always keep growing? And if it isn’t endless, what lies beyond it? AND THEN HOW CAN IT KEEP GROWING?!?!

Well the answer isn't as simple as that now is it. 🌌Is the universe endless? Not exactly. Think of the surface of a balloon: it's finite in area but you can keep walking without ever hitting an edge. In 3D space, that gets tricky to picture, but cosmologists use models to describe it.

Alternatively, the universe might actually be infinite — but we don’t know for sure, because we can only observe a part of it: the observable universe, limited by how far light has traveled since the Big Bang. 🚀 So how is the universe expanding? It’s not expanding into something. Instead, space itself is stretching. Galaxies aren't flying through space — the space between galaxies is increasing. Imagine dots on a balloon's surface. As you blow it up, the dots get farther apart, though they aren’t moving on their own.

This expansion was discovered in the 20th century (thanks to Edwin Hubble). Later, we found out that not only is the universe expanding — it’s accelerating, due to something called dark energy, but that isn't relevant here. 💥But if the universe has no edge… what’s it expanding into?

Here’s the wild part: nothing. Literally. There is no “outside” of the universe in our current understanding of physics. Space and time themselves are part of the universe, and it's not expanding into anything — more space is just being created.

It’s like asking, “What’s north of the North Pole?” It’s a question that doesn’t quite work in our model.

🤯So what lies beyond?

Beyond the observable universe — maybe more universe. If the universe is infinite, there’s no edge — just more galaxies we’ll never see. If it’s finite, then the universe might loop around or fold back on itself in ways we don’t yet fully understand.

There’s also the multiverse theory, which suggests there could be other universes outside ours — but that’s even more speculative.

Therefore, the universe might be infinite or curved, but either way, space itself is stretching. It’s not expanding into anything — space and time are growing from within. We don’t know if it ends, and we can’t see what lies beyond what light has shown us. So, is the ever-expanding universe a lie? Not quite. But it’s weirder than we ever imagined as kids — and the truth is still expanding right along with it.

Wanna know more? Drop a comment.