• Question: What is the mass of the universe???

    Asked by th3villager to Indi, Jarv, John, Ken, Vicky on 12 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Jarvist Moore Frost

      Jarvist Moore Frost answered on 9 Mar 2012:

      I don’t think we really know for sure!
      For starters, we can’t see the whole of the universe. We also now believe that a lot of the mass in the universe is not atoms and molecules, but mass that we can’t even see (lots of galaxies of stars we can see with telescopes should have fallen apart otherwise).

      However, we can try and estimate the mass of the universe!
      I went and looked up an estimate that reckons it is 10^53 kg.

      The Earth (and everything on it and in it) has a mass about 10^25 kg, so that means the universe is
      20’000’000’000’000’000’000’000’000’000 (twenty-thousand-million-million-million-million, or 10^28) times larger than the mass of the whole Earth.

      So if you think of something that weighs about a gramme, like a Pea, (10^-3 kg), the Earth is bigger than the Pea in about the same ratio as the Earth to the rest of the Universe.

      Pretty massive!

    • Photo: Vicky Young

      Vicky Young answered on 10 Mar 2012:

      The answer to life the universe and everything is 42.

    • Photo: Indi Ghangrekar

      Indi Ghangrekar answered on 10 Mar 2012:

      I really don’t know, I’m sure it can be calculated but that would involve a lot of maths and a lot of stuff that I only learnt the very basics for a long time ago! I like Vicky’s answer though!

    • Photo: Ken Dutton-Regester

      Ken Dutton-Regester answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      Let me answer your question with another question “How long is a piece of string”.

      i.e. it’s pretty obvious I have no idea.

      Hey Jarvis, what about negative mass? Do you know anything about that/ does it factor into the equation?

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