If the universe is not infinite, then what's beyond it?

Maybe we have to observe it to load it into existence. Maybe our consciousness creates certain places?

No one can presently answer that. However, its looking more and more like the Universe is either a Hologram or the Multiverse (an infinite number of Universe that spring into being every-time you make a real-life decision. At every junction a new Universe is created, just not where we can see it. I believe both that the Universe is a hologram and that its one of an infinite number of other Universes (one where I was homeless, one where I was President, one where I was extremely wealthy, etc.) However, those are not "my Universe" so I'll never see it. We can only start to image our Universe and our place in it (small and unimportant as that is). Let me give you some context in the size of just our little Solar System.

A comparative guide to the size of just our Solar System (i.e., how wrong are those solar models in the classroom?)

If the Sun were 3 inches in diameter (at near 1,000,000 miles in its actual size) and placed at the End of the End Zone of a Football field, then Mercury would be 8 feet away (or 36,000,000 miles) with each foot equalling almost 4,000,000 miles! Venus would be 17 Feet from the Sun (or 67,000,000 million miles). Earth orbits 22 feet away at 93,000,000 miles, STILL NOT OUT OF THE END ZONE! Mars has an odd, elongated orbit, but on average is about 140,000,000 million miles from the sun, or on the 2 Yard Line, just outside the end zone. That's all of the small rocky planets. Jupiter is on the 27 Yard Line, or 483,000,000 million miles. Saturn is another 30 yards down field on the 57 Yard Line at 870,000,000 million miles from the sun. Uranus is 1.7 Billion miles from the sun, or it would be on the end of the opposite End Zone, 120 yards across the Football field from the sun! Neptune is not even in the Football Stadium, but is 67 more yards (187 yards from the sun) out in the Parking Lot at (2.7 Billion miles from the sun). However, when describing the Solar System, the Solar System is the Sun, since it contains 99.8% of all the matter in the Solar System

The Universe IS infinite in that mankind can never and will never explore it all. Its also spreading so fast that the further out Galaxies will disappear into the distances of space. The Universe never quits expanding, and it may have never stopped (the Big Bang could still be banging.)

dense clouds called dark matter. as this matter breaks down, we see more of our part of universe.

The universe is infinite.

Perhaps a different kind of aether that is holding the mass of the universe in a restrained boundary..The cosmos were created in accordance to the Biblical record of Creation.

emptiness/nothingness'

Only itself---Like the surface of a 3D sphere forming the XY universe of "flatland" ---You travel far enough and you end up where you started.------------In our 3D, XYZ universe IT is the surface of a 4D hypersphere. We cannot visualize in 4D, but we can use the flatland model to project, intellectually, the characteristics of OUR universe.----A similar situation but in all 3D directions go "Far enough" and you will find yourself at your starting point. The universe also "expands" like a balloon into "extradimensional space"---The 2D universe into 3D space (as a sphere) and a 3D universe expanding into 4D space as a 'Hypersphere"

So I suppose 4D space would be what exists OUTSIDE our universe, but we could never travel into it, being restricted to 3 Dimensions.---Like the flatlanders cant travel into the 3D universe, but only to the surface of the sphere.

a big sign that says "wrong way go back"

According to the theory of cosmic inflation, the entire universe’s size is at least 10^23 times larger than the size of the observable universe.

That’s a lot of universe that we are missing. So, what *exactly* are we missing? What is outside the observable universe? Unfortunately, since we can’t see it or measure it, we don’t know what lies beyond the bounds of the observable universe. However, we have several theories regarding what exists in the great unknown.

Despite its strangeness, this first idea is one of the easiest to digest. Astronomers think space outside of the observable universe might be an infinite expanse of what we see in the cosmos around us, distributed pretty much the same as it is in the observable universe. This seems logical. After all, it doesn’t make sense that one section of the universe would be different than what we see around us. And honestly, who can envision a universe that has an end—a huge brick wall lurking at its edge?

So, in some ways, infinity makes sense. But “infinity” means that, beyond the observable universe, you won’t just find more planets and stars and other forms of material…you will eventually find every possible thing. Every. Possible. Thing.

That means that, if this holds true and we follow it to its logical conclusion, somewhere out there, there is another person who is identical to you in every possible way, and there is also a you who is only slightly different from you in every possible way (one is an inch shorter; one got hit by a bus 5 years ago and died; one has a missing finger etc.). In fact, this “other you” may be reading this article right now; the only difference is that they just picked their nose while you didn’t (or did you?). This notion seems inconceivable. But then, infinity is rather inconceivable.

Another theory deals with something called “dark flow.” In 2008, astronomers discovered something very strange and unexpected—galactic clusters were all streaming in the same direction at immense speed, over two million miles per hour. One possible cause: Massive structures outside the observable universe exerting gravitational influence. As for the structures themselves, they could be literally anything: Amazingly huge accumulations of matter and energy (on scales we can hardly imagine) or even bizarre warps in space-time that are funneling gravitational forces from other universes. We simply don’t know what these massive objects could be. Notably, recent analyses have claimed to debunk the dark flow model, but this debunking is still being disputed.

Another option involves a universe of universes. Some believe that the whole of our universe could exist in a small “bubble” in the midst of a vast array of other bubbles. Theorists call this a “multiverse.” Interestingly, the idea asserts that these universes can come into contact with one another—gravity can flow between these parallel universes, and when they connect, a Big Bang like the one that created our universe may occur.

These ideas are just a few of the more popular hypotheses. There are a lot more out there but we don't about them right now.

Nothing. There's just a maximum distance between any two points.