Einstein's static universe inadequate as we accept the universe is expanding.

Be that as it may, Einstein's static universe was empirically inadequate: it cannot account for the redshift data gathered by Edwin Hubble and others in the 1920s. The redshift data indicates that distant stars are moving away from us, and moving faster in direct proportion to their distance. Thus, the data indicate an expanding universe.

But what is the Universe exapnding into?  The universe is everything, so it isn't expanding into anything. It's just expanding. All of the galaxies in the universe are moving away from each other, and every region of space is being stretched, but there's no center they're expanding from and no outer edge to expand into anything else.

But that doesn't mean that the universe is infinite. That brings us to the long answer. To understand how something could be finite but have no edge, think of the fabric of the universe as the surface of a balloon. As the balloon inflates, the surface stretches and every point on that surface moves away from every other point, but a tiny being on the surface of that balloon could walk forever and never run into the edge of its balloon universe. There's no edge, yet that balloon universe has a finite volume. Don't get this,

do you?

 

What is there beyond the universe?

How can the universe be infinite if it's expanding?

People also ask

What is there beyond the universe?

By definition, the universe contains everything, so there is no "outside." Physicist Stephen Hawking has often said that the whole question makes no sense, because if the universe came from nothing and brought everything into existence, then asking what lies beyond the universe is like asking what is north of the North Pole?