EXPLORE · POWERS OF TEN

The Long Zoom

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10²⁶ m93 billion light-years

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The multiverse

Speculation: Eternal inflation (Guth, Linde, Vilenkin): some models of inflation predict endless bubble universes. None has been observed; the sizes here are unknown.

If inflation never stops everywhere at once, it keeps budding off universes like bubbles in boiling water — each with its own laws, forever out of reach. Where two bubbles grow into each other their walls crash and ring. Some may have bumped into ours; astronomers have looked for the bruise in the microwave sky, and not found it yet.