How the universe works. Telling physicists and astronomers

From the point of view of astronomy, the universe is considered the largest object available for observation. In fact, it turns out that the boundary of the visible cosmos coincides with the boundary of the Universe and everything that is further is accessible only for the theoretical research of physicists.

How does the universe work according to astronomers? Our Earth is one of the planets of the solar system. The sun is in the Milky Way galaxy , and the Milky Way galaxy is in a cloud of other galaxies. The set of clouds of galaxies forms a structure called the metagalaxy. The metagalaxy occupies the entire visible region of the universe. Therefore, the universe consists of a very rarefied interstellar gas; Stars, unevenly distributed in space and forming clusters and galaxies; Planets, comets, clouds of dust and other cold objects falling into the gravitational field of stars and star clusters. This is how the macro world looks.

But the above approximate picture of how the universe is arranged is not complete. It does not take into account that beyond the visible boundary of the cosmos there may exist other objects that differ from those that are observed inside. The point is that the point of view about the infinity of the universe is not entirely correct. The universe should have some kind of boundary, albeit very far removed. This follows at least from the most popular theory of how the birth of the universe took place - the theory of the Big Bang.

Proceeding from the theory of the Big Bang, the origin of the universe is due to the existence of a superdense substance that exploded. As a result of the explosion, in the first three minutes, all the elementary particles of the Universe appeared that were grouped into larger entities. But until now you can observe the consequences of the explosion: the space of the universe expands, and the galaxies fly in all directions from each other.

It is logical to assume that the original substance (or energy) should have a finite volume and be in some other space, which may still exist and is beyond the boundaries of the universe.

What is called infinity in physics, in fact, infinity is mathematical. It arises where equations and theory can not describe the existing phenomenon. Therefore, it remains only to speculate about how the universe is arranged there, where the most powerful telescopes and mathematical apparatus of theorists can not look. In particular, we can not know exactly what the boundary of the universe looks like.

Physicists believe that the study of elementary particles should help in answering the question of how the universe is arranged. Experiments show that the "most elementary" subatomic particles behave like clusters of energy. And besides energy there is nothing more. Even space, which for a long time was considered an independent entity, is now regarded as a receptacle of energy. But between the elementary particles, for example, protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom, a very large distance. Therefore, from the position of the microworld, the Universe looks like point energy clusters, scattered at a very large distance from each other.