What does the edge of the universe look like?

Explore what lies at the limits of the cosmos.

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The question of what's at the edge of the universe is one that people will probably continue to ask until the end of time. That's because we may never actually know for sure - and there might not even be an edge at all.

Looking back in time

To human eyes, the sky looks like an endless expanse of black space scattered with stars. With the invention of telescopes about 400 years ago, stargazers were able to see further and find more and more new things in the sky. These included many more stars, but also strange-looking fuzzy patches of light, called “nebulae” from the Latin word for “mist” or "clouds".