Space is infinite. Matter is finite. The distribution of matter will always be finite, even if we can't see the end of it ourselves. Matter first appeared 13.8 billion years ago (it does not matter if it was longer ago), but the age of the universe is far older of course. Matter's beginning is not the same as the Universe's beginning. To meld all into one event would require extraordinary evidence, and there is actually nothing other than matter coming into being, and we simply have no data on the beginning of energy.

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The term Universe is actually the essential question here.

It is a non-functional word and it is very easy to show.

Write your name on an envelope, address, city, country, planet Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Universe.

The scientific postal person will declare that seven items gave direction and one item (the Universe) did not give direction.

This is part of the Structure of Everything, a final layer that is non-functional and that plagues physicists because they want to place something functional at the largest level.

Some go as far as to invent the word Multiverse, just so the word Universe becomes directional indeed (as in: Our Universe and not the others). Yet instead of eliminating the non-functional level, they just kicked the can down the road, and now the nonsensical Multiverse is the nonfunctional word.

The word Universe is therefore a concept, a collection of all that is correct and true (seen and unseen), but that is not unified in one platform other than that concept, the word.

We do not have a relationship with the universe. At best, we have a relationship with the Milky Way (and vaguely with the Great Attractor). Anything larger than that and we do not have a relationship with it.

Big Whisper theory.