[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> younger than the age of our universe (less than 14 billion years), but   
   >> space has expanded.   
   >   
   >   
   > An important point is, according to the evidence, there was a time   
   > before about 4bya when the universe was dominated by gravity, and its   
   > rate of expansion was actually slowing.  Now the universe is dominated   
   > by dark energy, and so its rate of expansion has become ever faster   
   > since then.   
      
   The claim in the article is that the expansion of the universe continues   
   to be currently accelerating, but the rate of acceleration is   
   decreasing, so dark energy effects seem to have limits.   
      
   I recall an article claiming that our current visible universe extended   
   out to around 45 billion light years in any direction (maybe it was 45   
   billion light years across, the light within visible space has to be   
   less than 14 billion years old) but there has to be a lot of the   
   universe that we can no longer see.  Kestrel indicated that this limit   
   applied to the points within our visible universe so that every location   
   had a different horizon and could see a different part of the existing   
   universe.  There would have to be a lot of matter that is not in the   
   visible universe.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
   >   
   >   
   >> It doesn't matter, what I wanted was if the mass of the universe   
   >> estimate includes the mass that is not observable.  We have the   
   >> background radiation map of the universe, and estimates based on what we   
   >> can see (these are based on the observable universe).  The estimates   
   >> would have included what we could not see within the visible universe   
   >> because we lacked the ability to detect the light from the distant   
   >> objects.  Did this estimate also include the mass that was too far away   
   >> to be visible?  How do we know how much mass is no longer visible and is   
   >> beyond the horizon of what we can see?  We've been trying to estimate   
   >> the amount of dark matter within the visible universe, so how would we   
   >> measure the amount of matter further away than the visible horizon?   
   >> Even though we can't observe it, it is still part of our universe.   
   >>   
   >> Ron Okimoto   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)