If you had an infinite Universe with a constant density of stars and/or galaxies, then you'd wind up seeing an infinite amount of light from every direction you'd look in. Even though we knew practically nothing about the large-scale structure of the Universe until the latter half of the 20th century, we still knew that an infinitely large observable Universe was simply an impossibility.īack in the 1800s, Heinrich Olbers took note of a mathematical paradox.
What we do know, however, is that the part of the Universe that's observable to us must be finite. The jury, scientifically, is still out as to whether the Universe is finite or infinite we simply don't know. If this were the case, darkness would be impossible.
But if this were the case, you'd fully expect that eventually, your line-of-sight would intersect a luminous object. It may be possible that the Universe is truly infinite, with an infinite number of stars and.