The Universe

Public astrographic record
Property of the Royal Atheneum of Hövnís, Eörpe

The universe is all of space and time, and their contents: planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy.
The universe is often defined as "the totality of existence", or everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist. The word universe may also refer to concepts such as the cosmos, the world, and nature.

Semantic Centralism

The universe, in its literal definition, seldom see much use. Little research has been done on what lies beyond the galaxy and it was far more common to speculate what hid in the Core, in the Far Reach, past the Maelstrom, or in the companion galaxies.
It happened that the word universe was used in a metaphorical sense during normal conversation. One such use was to illustrate the importance or insignificance of an object, situation, themselves, or others, many would examine whatever it was in relation to the universe. Another widespread use was to, for derogatory purposes, describe an individual considered oblivious or possessing vastly different view of life compared to the speaker as 'being in their own universe'.
It was also very common for many individuals to have a view of existence centered around the galaxy, and the words galaxy and universe would be often be used synonymously and interchangeably. This semantic centralism pervaded most space-travelling cultures and societies. Many of the Ascendancy's inhabitants in particular were known to hold the viewpoint that their capital world of Lusoya was the center of the universe.

Astrographic Data

Age

~13.705 billion years

Diameter

Unknown

Observable Diameter

~18gly / ~5.52gpc

Estimated Mass

> 1053kg

Estimated Density

9.9x10-30g/cm

Estimated Average Temperature

2.72548 K / -270.4 °C / -454.8 °F

Main Contents

Ordinary Matter ~4.9%
Dark Matter ~26.8%
Dark Energy ~68.3%

Shape

Flat, with a 0.4% margin of error

History

It is believed that the universe was formed 13.703 billion years ago, when space and time emerged together; extremely hot and dense at first but then expanding and cooling off.
In the earliest stages of the universe, tiny fluctuations in density and the influence of gravity led to concentrations of dark matter gradually forming, gathering into foam-like structures of filaments with a seemingly endless void in between. Ordinary matter was drawn to these filaments and in turn formed enormous clouds of dust and gas. As they experienced gravitational collapses they formed disks with black holes at their centers, and its contents would orbit around them where the dark matter was most dense.

Native Life

Most astronomers and planetologists are in agreement that the existence of observable life is entirely possible in other galaxies, away from the Rosepetal and its satellites, but is likely exceedingly rare due to the universe being fine-tuned.
Being fine-tuned means that the conditions that allow the existence of observable life is thought to only occur when certain fundamental constants lie within a very narrow range of values. If even just one of these fundamental constants are outside of the narrow range, it wouldn't be conductive to the establishment and development of life as it is understood.
However, no native life has been found within the extragalactic void itself and it was initially assumed that lifeforms wouldn't be able to survive there. The more recent discoveries of various extrinsic species in the Rosepetal, such as the photonids and umbsids, have had scientist theorize if lifeforms of similar makeup could exist out in the extragalactic void.

Astrography

As the edge of the universe can't be observed by the denizens of the Rosepetal, it's unknown whether the size of the universe in its totality is actually finite or infinite. The only thing that's been established is the fact that the universe seem to still be expanding, at an accelerating rate.
The universe is thought to be composed of five elements: dark energy, dark matter, ordinary matter, electromagnetic radiation and antimatter. Of these, electromagnetic radiation and antimatter likely only contribute to about 0.01% of the total mass-energy, and measurements show that the electromagnetic radiation is decreasing - it may have decreased by as much as half in the past two billion years.
The density of ordinary matter - which includes, atoms, stars, galaxies and life - is estimated to account for only 4.9% of the universe - is very low at only about 4.5x10-31 grams per cubic centimeter. This would roughly correspond to one proton for every four cubic metres of volume.
Dark matter, which has yet to be fully identified, accounts for roughly 26.8% of the universe. And lastly dark energy, which is the energy of empty space and the cause for the accelerating expansion of the universe, accounts for the remaining 68.3%.
When measuring ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy over length scales longer than 300 million light years they appear homogeneously distributed, but over shorter length scales it's clear that at least ordinary matter tends to clump hierarchially: atoms are condensed into stars, most stars into galaxies, most galaxies into clusters, galaxy clusters into superclusters, and finally, superclusters into large-scale galactic filaments.

Extragalactic Void

The extragalactic void is a vast starless nothingess thought to lack native life wherein the different galaxies floats alongside other structural remains of the universe's creation. Between these larger structures of ordinary matter these voids are measured to typically be 33 million to 450 million light years in diameter. Vast regions of relative emptiness also exist past those, with the largest known void estimated to measure over 2.2 billion light years across.

'The Beyond' is a common-mouth term for this seeming limitless space found between stars, usually interchangeably referring to both inter- and extragalactic space. In some religious contexts, it's also a word for an alternate reality, a post-existential dimension, or an afterlife.

— Notation by Dr. Tybulus Svilen

Other Galaxies

It's unknown how many full-size galaxies exist in total, but Lusoyan astronomers estimate numbers closing to a trillion. They are said to have documented observations of almost 450 billion galaxies, and as many as 1x10³⁰ stars, within a circa 18 billion lightyear radius outside the Rosepetal's stellar halo. On average, galaxies appear to have a star count between as few as 10 million up to about one trillion.