Q: How can we see the early universe and the Big Bang? Shouldn’t the light have already passed us?

Physicist: This is a very common question that’s generated (as best I can tell) by a misrepresentation of the Big Bang that you’ll often see repeated in popular media.  In the same documentary you may hear statements along the lines of:

“our telescopes can see the light from the earliest moments of the universe” and

“in the Big Bang, all of the energy and matter in the universe suddenly exploded out of a point smaller than the head of a pin”.

The first statement is pretty solid.  Technically, the oldest light we can see is from about 300,000 years after the Big Bang, but we can use it to infer some interesting things about what was happening within the first second (which is the next best thing to actually being able to see the first second).  That light is now the Microwave Background Radiation.

The second statement has a mess of holes in it.

First, when someone says that all of the matter and energy in the universe was in a region smaller than the head of a pin, what they’re actually talking about is the observable universe, which is just all of the galaxies and whatnot that we can see.  If you’re standing on the sidewalk somewhere you can talk meaningfully about the “observable Earth” (everything you can see around you), but it’s important to keep in mind that there’s very little you can say about the size and nature of the entire Earth from one tiny corner of it.

The second statement also implies that there’s time and space independent of the universe.  Phrases like “suddenly exploded out of a point” makes it sound like you could have been floating around, biding your time playing solitaire and checking email in a vast void, and then Boom! (pardon; “Bang!”) a whole lot of stuff suddenly appears nearby and expands.  If the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe were as straightforward as an explosion and things flying away from that explosion, then the earliest light would be on the front of our ever-expanding universe.  If that were the case (and it seems to be from the images and videos presented in, like, every documentary evar), then there’s no way you’d be able to see the light from the early universe.

The incorrect misrepresentation often shown (implied) in many science shows and books: the Big Bang as an explosion that happens at some point, and all of the resulting light (blue ring) and matter (stuff in the ring) in the universe spreading out from that point (red star).  However, this means that the light from the early universe would be long gone, and we would have no way to see it.

Just to be doubly clear, the idea of the universe exploding out of one particular place, and then all of the matter flying apart into some kind of pre-existing space, is not what’s actually going on.  It’s just that getting art directors to be accurate in a science documentary is about as difficult as getting penguins to walk with decorum.

The view of the universe that physicists work with today involves space itself expanding, as opposed to things in space flying apart.  Think of the universe as an infinite rubber sheet*.  The early universe was very dense, and very hot, what with things being crammed together.  Hot things make lots of light, and the early universe was extremely hot everywhere, so there would have been plenty of light everywhere, shooting in every direction.

If you start with light everywhere, you’ll continue to have it everywhere.  The only thing that changes with time is how old the light you see is, and how far it’s traveled.  The expansion of the universe is independent of that.  Imagine standing in a huge (infinite) crowd of people.  If everyone yelled “woo!” (or something equally pithy) all at once, you wouldn’t hear it all at once, you’d hear it forever, from progressively farther and farther away.

Everyone in a crowd yells “woo!” at the same time. As time marches forward you (blue dot) will continue to hear the sound, but the sound you’re hearing is older and from farther away (red line). Light from the early universe works the same way.

As the universe expands (as the rubber sheet is stretched) everything cools off, and the universe becomes clear, as everything is given a chance to move apart.  That same light is still around, it’s still everywhere, and it’s still shooting in every direction.  Wait a few billion years (14 or so), and you’ve got galaxies, sweaters for dogs, hip-hop music; a thoroughly modern universe.  That old light will still be everywhere, shooting in every direction.  Certainly, there’s a little less because it’s constantly running into things, but the universe is, to a reasonable approximation, empty.  So most of the light is still around.

The expansion of the universe does have some important effects, of course.  The light that we see today as the cosmic microwave background started out as gamma rays, being radiated from the omnipresent, ultra-hot gases of the young universe, but they got stretch out, along with the space they’ve been moving through.  The longer the wavelength, the lower the energy.  The background energy is now so low that you can be exposed to the sky without being killed instantly.  In fact, the night sky today radiates energy at the same intensity as anything chilled to about -270 °C (That’s why it’s cold at night!  Mystery solved!).  Even more exciting, the expansion means that the sources of the light we see today are now farther away than they were when the light was emitted.  So, while the oldest light is only about 14 billion years old (and has traveled only 14 billion light years), the location from which it was emitted can be calculated to be about 46 billion light years away right now!

Isn’t that weird?


*The universe may be “closed”, in which case it’s curved and finite (like the surface of a balloon),  or “open”, in which case it’s flat and infinite in all directions (like an infinite rubber sheet).  “Curved” and “flat” are a little hard to picture when you’re talking about 3 dimensional space, but there’s a little help here.  So far, all indications are that the universe is flat, so it’s either infinite or so big that the curvature can’t be detected by our equipment (kinda like how the curvature of the Earth can’t be detected by just looking around, because the Earth is so big).  In either case, the expansion works the same way.  However, in the open case it’s a touch more difficult to picture how the Big Bang worked.  The universe would have started infinite, and then gotten bigger.  The math behind that is pretty easy to deal with, but it’s still harder to imagine.

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48 Responses to Q: How can we see the early universe and the Big Bang? Shouldn’t the light have already passed us?

  1. Will says:

    ‘The universe would have started infinite, and then gotten bigger.’

    I love physics.

  2. A.J says:

    I think there is some problema with an infinite universe, such as making hilberts hotel possible.

  3. GAO says:

    I can understand the general idea that the space and time fabric of the observable universe started out as a region smaller than the head of a pin and then expanded to its present size, much like a printed image on a party balloon starting out small and then getting larger as the balloon is inflated and the rubber fabric expands.

    What I don’t understand, however, is the conceptual distance measurement unit or reference that is being tacitly implied when it is said that the fabric of the universe has expanded: presumably any physical unit or reference of measurement will itself have expanded at the same rate, along with the fabric of the universe, making the universe in fact seem exactly the same size when measured by observers within the universe, using an internal measurement reference.

    I could understand the idea of the fabric of the universe expanding from the hypothetical point of view of an observer outside the universe, watching it inflate; but for any beings within the universe like us, surely observing the expansion of the fabric of the universe is not possible, in that us internal observers and our measuring instruments will expand equally with the universe, making the expansion undetectable from within.

    Put another way: if the space and time fabric universe and everything in it were suddenly halved in size, how would those beings inside and part of the universe even know this shrinking in half had taken place?

    If the reference of distance measurement tacitly employed in the statement “the universe started out smaller than a pinhead” can be explained to me, I’d be most grateful. I have always been curious about this.

  4. Madhu says:

    Gao’s question makes sense. We can say something is expanding only if that ‘something’ keeps expanding and our measuring instruments (scales) remain unchanged. it means in a smaller universe (close to big bang) the measuring scales may be much smaller than plank length and the living beings (if any) would still conceive the universe as being vast! but, this would happen only if the rate of the expansion of the universe is uniform and constant at all places. but we detect that the farther a galaxy, it’s moving faster away from us. it may be that our measuring scales are ALSO expanding, but no so much as compared to the receding away of farther galaxies.

  5. Delta1212 says:

    The answer is that space is expanding, but the stuff inside it is not. Since our references to distance are all based on that stuff, and not on space itself, there is no expansion of distances.

    For example, if two stars are one mightiest apart, it tales light one year to travel between them. If the space expands so that they are two lightyears apart, it will take light two years to travel between them. The speed of light does not increase to compensate for the expansion. Since we actually now define a meter in terms of lightyears, our reference to space has remained static while the space has expanded.

    Additionally, matter is not expanding with space. Atoms remain the same size, they just get pushed apart. The reason we don’t notice this/blow apart is that in very small spaces, the attraction between the atoms is many times more powerful than the rate of expansion.

    Imagine you have two large treadmills pushed together end to end and moving in opposite directions. If you put put two magnets in the center of each treadmill, they will move away from each other. if you put the magnets right at the edge of each treadmill so that they are touching, they will stick together and stay put instead of getting pulled along by their respective treadmills.

    So yes, units of measurement are required to measure the change in distance, but no, these units do not change themselves because they are not based on percentages of the total amount of spaces but ratios of forces that do not change in synch with the expansion of the universe.

  6. Gareth says:

    Hi
    When astronomers say they have looked at early galaxies just hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, what direction do they look? Would they find the same early galaxies if they looked in any direction?

  7. Error: Unable to create directory uploads/2024/03. Is its parent directory writable by the server? The Physicist says:

    Yup! They’re all over the place.

  8. mark says:

    If a black hole had enough time to consume every galaxy in the universe until it was so massive does the math make it possible to create a big bang? Before the big bang there was no time and in a black hole physics says time ultimitely stops so im trying to see a connection between the two. Could our Universe be some kind of “white hole” or the remains of space, time and matter that a black hole has gobbled up and threw back out in another dimension. It sure boggles my brain just thinking about it let alone trying to explain it to you. I hope you can understand what i am trying to ask you.

  9. Pingback: Long Ago

  10. Error: Unable to create directory uploads/2024/03. Is its parent directory writable by the server? The Physicist says:

    There’s been some “professional pondering” along those lines. One of the theories that describes what you’re talking about is the “fecund universe” theory.

  11. mark says:

    Hi, inside an atom is protons, neutrons, electrons etc whizzing about in huge swathes of space. What stops these particles from flying off out of the atom? Is it elecro magnetism or quantum gravity or both as when you see diagrams it looks as though there is some form of shell containing everything somewhat like an egg. Do you think the origin of the Universe what caused the big bang will ever be explained? I know Stephen Hawking has explained it in terms similar to quantum mechanics where particles can just pop into existence from nothing but there is always something else these particles are related too when we observe them in our space and time. I suppose the next biggest puzzle is what is spacetime actually expanding into. I find it near impossible to imagine something expanding into nothing. Surely there must be an edge or something and if so what is beyond that! They appear to me like questions that can never be fully explained but hey, what would i know, i am just an unqualified interested person seeking answers. One thing for sure that i am totally convinced of is that there is definately no God or sentient creator of our universe. Maybe it is so complex that we are not meant to find out, but as human beings it is not in our nature to not to try to answer questions like this. Maybe we are all an illusion and nothing is actually real! It sure is fascinating but totally head banging as well.

  12. Error: Unable to create directory uploads/2024/03. Is its parent directory writable by the server? The Physicist says:

    The electromagnetic force keeps electrons bound to atoms.
    I personally have no idea whether or not the beginning of the universe will/can be explained.
    Spacetime isn’t really “expanding into anything”, it’s just expanding (for what that’s worth)! There’s even a post about it.

  13. mark says:

    Is sentience a force of nature. It baffles me because i cant describe it. Is it matter, photons? Its gotta be made of something? Is this the part where people then say God? Theres gotta be a better explanation than that hasnt there. Or is explained through cause and effect. Its a toughie.

  14. Dark energy and expansion logic says:

    I think people here forget to mention the so-called “dark energy” that most objects and all particle clouds and forms are made of: It plays a very vital role in the expansion of the universe. Only a tiny fraction of even a rather dense mass is actually matter. The distance between the tiniest particles within atomic structures is relatively huge. Matter itself doesnt expand, but the dark energy in the long run”forces” the matter to lose its “infinite” process of exchanging energy sufficient for being matter. (See the effect of entropy)

  15. I would like to know whether both Light and Sound emerged during the process of big bang. Or these have nothing to do with big bang ?

  16. Daimer says:

    Hi first of all i haveto say my english is not so good coz im From Finland. But i want to say that if we can see big bang is it possible in theory that we can allso see “ancient” earth in somewhere in the universe? And if that is possible in theory can you please explain.

    Thanks.

  17. Christian says:

    I read the whole article, but from a lay man point of view it still hasn’t been explained clearly how light from the early universe is still reaching us and we measure the age of the universe by it. I do understand the concept of a baloon expanding and the distance between the dots on it becoming longer. The article’s author could not explain the idea beyond any doubt, so I doubt he understands the implications of this idea. I will only agree to it if the following were true: firstly, the dot on that baloon 13 billions ago that is now that most distant galaxy detected and the other dot 13 billions years ago that now became our galaxy were at the extreme opposite ends of the then universe, especially since astronomers measure the age of our universe by it. Secondly, the universe is expanding at slightly lower than the speed of light, so it took so long for those early lights to catch up with us. In other words, you are I are standing on two trains moving in opposite directions at slightly lower than the speed of sound, and you say “hi’ to me but I don’t hear the “hi” until a very long time from now.

  18. Kenneth Kristiansen says:

    Hi! I just stumbled upon this very informative article through som link at wired…

    Read it, digested it but still agree With above poster Christian.

    This: So, while the oldest light is only about 14 billion years old (and has traveled only 14 billion light years), the location from which it was emitted can be calculated to be about 46 billion light years away right now!

    whaat? This has been a childhood thought of mine, I just could not grasp that, yes, the light we see is old, like 14 billion years old, but the objects emitting the light is not 14 billion ligth years away.. Where can I find more information on this topic? I am 44 years old, I believed in the “big Boom” 🙂 But now you tell me it should be called ” a rapid rubber sheet stretch theory” … I feel uneducated.

    Love the site though:-)

  19. James says:

    I think a way for me to understand maybe how we can still be able to see the faint light or images from the very early universe can be easily explained by the explanation of the universe as a Negative Curvature or Hyperbolic Space…. explained here
    http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/astronomy-terms/space-shape2.htm

    light can then ultimately travel indefinitely basically in a straight line till it reaches its original point of origin, this can explain (well to me though) how it possible to capture these images… as far as I know the first few seconds after the big bang everything expanded faster than the speed of light or that photons did not exist yet, might be why we cannot see the actual very beginning…

  20. Pingback: A Guide to Reality, Part 7 | Whereof One Can Speak

  21. Zaron says:

    @A.J – What’s wrong with Hilbert’s hotel being possible?

  22. Nikki Ty says:

    I had trouble with the concept of expanding Universe because I’m not arrogant enough to assume we’re at the center of it. “Made in the image of God” and all that. I’m quite comfortable with being a speck of sand. The immensity of the Cosmos is absolutely wonderful and just thinkiing about it propels me into an almost ecstatic state.

    It all became clear with a very simple image suggested by a fellow blogger. If one thinks of the Cosmos as being a huge lump of bread dough filled with raisins … and rising slowly as the baker’s yeast goes to work …. well it’s easy to grasp. There’s no real “center” of action …. it’s expanding in all directions. Lovely.

  23. Nicholas Lee says:

    If we conclude the universe is expanding because the distances between separate lumps of matter are getting smaller, then couldn’t we equally assume that the distances are staying the same whilst the lumps of matter (and our measuring sticks) are shrinking?
    Is there any empirical way to tell which scenario is happening?
    What would the implications be for our world view if it was the size of the matter particles and the constant ‘C’ that was shrinking rather than the universe expanding?

  24. JimS says:

    If we can we see light from the early universe, does that mean we can see earlier versions of our own galaxy out there somewhere? Or am I completely missing the point?

  25. Xerenarcy says:

    the universe doesn’t need to be centered around us for it to have expanded ‘from a point’. due to relativity, from everywhere you look you will think you’re in the center.

    the sound analogy is most apt to explain why we can see this light…

    first, don’t think of the universe as having an edge or boundary; forget about that entirely because we cannot prove this either way with current theory (or whether it loops back on itself). instead, the correct way to think of the ‘boundary of the universe’ is ‘as far as you can see’.

    in other words, at the instant of the big bang, there would have been nothing coherent to look at because light had not yet moved at all anywhere in the universe to be observed at a distance.

    (ignoring the physics of light just after the big bang for convenience) a short while later the light from everywhere in the universe could have moved X distance. therefore, X distance in every direction around you would have been visible, and anything further had not yet had enough time for the light to reach you.

    for example – out at night on a field somewhere away from echo’s and such, have a large group of people clap on cue from a light source of some sort indicating the ‘start’ of the universe. if standing in the middle, you will hear those closer to you first, and those further from you afterwards.

    now suppose that the universe is filled with these ‘claps’ that all happened, everywhere, at the exact same time. since the universe is (for all we know) infinite, there is a constant stream of claps from the big bang (or the earliest moment when light could decouple and fly away unhindered) from further and further in the universe, yet all of them happened at the same time.

    and then, add to this that the universe was initially ‘point-sized’. all this means is that the distances between everywhere were, compared to today, infinitely small. it helps to think of the universe at that time as simply ‘infinitely dense’ but not strictly speaking a point, just very very very small such that today’s physics would even assume a point-like description for simplicity.

    what does this do for the claps? suppose the sound from the claps can travel 300 m/s, and you’re interested in when the sound will arrive from someone who was 300m away from you when they first clapped… lets say the distance between you and that person doubled spontaneously half a second after everyone clapped – the sound had been in-flight for half a second, and covered 150m; since the distance doubled the total distance is now 600m, and since the sound was half-way at the time, it is now located 300m from you and 300m from the source!

    to recap, it moved 150m to get half-way of the distance to 600m, leaving 300m to go which would take 1s. the total travel time is 1.5s for what should have taken 1s.

    the universe expanding is similar to this but with light, and it happens continuously throughout the trip of the light rather than spontaneously growing in increments, but for a simple analogy this is sufficient i think.

  26. Brandon says:

    GAO if space expands that doesn’t mean im expanding…lol we can see the expansion because of dark energy*(universe inflating) by the galaxy moving apart. U could easily argue the universe isn’t infinite if u were god and could break the laws of physics. But the only reason it is infinite is because its always getting bigger and faster then the speed of light only if u look at the universe as a whole. Example. Im going to escape the universe- fastest speed is the speed of light, well u start ur journey and notice ur not getting far in space because the universe is expanding as a whole, so then u get to the end of time and ur still here, pound ur head! But if u could go faster then the speed of light u go backwards in time so ur still stuck. Well i dunno but ud probably have to rip spacetime itself to leave the universe, anyway when space expands u dont expand with it. Thats y we can measure the universe getting bigger but where not

  27. GDL says:

    Way to weave a patchwork! Instead of saying that the Universe was infinite and expanded everywhere at once (where’s the “bang” now in all this?) which accounts for increasing wavelengths, why not just say that Universe is indeed infinite and there is no expansion of space and there never was, but that light just naturally weakens (although very slowly) over time because of some process I won’t speculate about in this post, and that this constant weakening is however probably too small to measure in a lab at our instant time scale? This would explain Hubble’s red shift as well. Perhaps many people are fond of the new age creationist view offered by big bang theory, but faced with the accumulation of contradictions in itself and with observations, isn’t it time for serious scientists to question their devotion to this obsolete theory and start considering alternatives? If a serious scientist is willing, I’d welcome the chance to discuss these problems and my cosmological ideas, which may not be complete because so much is unknown, but at least they seem more logical (to me at least). Oh, and thanks for finally answering that basic big bang question that puzzled me for a very long time, even though it exposes a fatal flaw of the theory.

  28. Brad Bell says:

    Something cannot be infinite if it has a starting point, although it could grow inifinitely. If the universe started from a point, it was not small or large. We look at that point as though we are outside it in empty space. There is no such thing as empty space, only a Highs bosun field.
    We forget that we are inside of an apparently expanding universe that we are measuring. In fact, we are made up of part of the universe, ourselves. The universe is studying itself, through us and posing theories as to what it is.

  29. Stewart says:

    Surely if the universe is expanding then there is no end, so the light from the beginning should be long past us, so maybe it’s the expanding light and not the beginning. Just a thought.

  30. Strings are noncalculable. Relativistic theory is calculable. How to harmonise the
    two? I don\t think strings could wiggle, could form loop and even multidimensional
    branes. Strings must be simple random bnary points with values vibrating between
    1 and 0. Then it becomes calculable. For example a random vibration of 100 times will generate an average 50 * 1 and 50*0. But points are dispersed throughout the
    Universe which travel at different speed from standstill to speed of light. Therefore
    frequencies of vibration must vary. This redefined string might generate values which relativistic theory could use.
    Huen Yeong Kong (dummy number theorist)

  31. Fugitive says:

    How does this make sense?

    “So, while the oldest light is only about 14 billion years old (and has traveled only 14 billion light years), the location from which it was emitted can be calculated to be about 46 billion light years away right now!”

    Even if us and the source were traveling at opposite directions at the speed of light, we would only be 14 billion light years away from the location in space which the light was emitted from and 28 billion light years away from the source of the light. Am I missing something?

  32. Dustin says:

    Fugitive,

    You are missing the fact that the universe is expanding. The oldest light is only 14 billion years old, and only traveled 14 billion light years, but since space is expanding, we can detect that light to be 46 billion light years away.

  33. Josh says:

    Your answer was did not explain itself. “Since the universe is expanding…”. Give me a specific understanding of a specific source of light that our space telescopes can see tonight? What system and how did the light travel that far and did it travel in 46 billions years or more or less? Thanks!

  34. Tony says:

    Fugitive & Josh,

    Space expansion is not bound by the speed of light because it is not an object traveling through space. The farther something is from us, the faster it is moving away from us. Objects farther than ~ 15 billion light years away from us right now are already moving away from us faster than speed of light, therefore we will never see them.

    Check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

  35. Larry Doze says:

    Assuming the universe started out as a pin head or single point, and is expanding, then it gets to, say, a blimp size, then seems to me if you were standing inside that blimp and space were expanding faster than the speed of light that you would never see anything – even something one inch away. So space must be expanding at less the speed of light. But the light from something 200 feet away from you would get to you right away unless the universe was expanding at almost the speed of light, say 185,999.999999 or so feet per second – right?

  36. josh says:

    Is there any conceivable way an observer on Earth could see an event that took place on Earth a year ago via the light waves that event emitted at the time? Would those waves have to be reflected back at Earth or is there another way? I’m talking, essentially, about looking into the past on our planet vs. seeing galaxies forming a billion years ago.

  37. Alan Locke says:

    How old is the oldest object? 13.2 billion years?
    How old is the universe? 13.8 billion years?
    Where was our earth (or its ancestors) 13.2 billion years ago? No more than 1.2 billion light years from ‘old’ object?
    Over the 13.2 billion years the ‘light’ from ‘old’ object has got to where earth is now?
    So, presumably, earth and or it’s ancestors has ‘travelled’ 12 billion light years. Or is my simple ‘science’ too simple?

    As an aside, most of astronomy seems to be imagination (hypothesis if you like). In the dimension of imagination I am most certainly the centre of my universe. Aren’t you?

  38. James says:

    Seeing 12 billion old galaxies with hubble again n again how??
    I mean if these galaxies vanished 12 billion years ago why hubble is spotting them again n again? Ok the light reached from 12 bil distance to scope’s lens than finished but its keep coming from dead galaxies?????…..
    confuseeeed

  39. Rainman says:

    Gao early on in these comments said that he could not understand why in an expanding universe if everything in the universe expanded then why would our instruments be able to detect any expansion because all distances and the means to detect it would expand as well. Assuming that all that were true, the reason that instruments today could detect the expansion would be because they were measuring light produced in the past measured with today’s instruments and not “smaller” instruments from when the light was made. It is the same reason a “small” universe would be hotter than an older and larger universe. Not everything gets scaled the same as the universe stretches including certain physical laws.

  40. Eric says:

    If it’s space itself that’s expanding, whats it expanding into? Like how a balloon has to have room around it if your going to blow it up.

  41. Guillaume Laflèche says:

    You all realize that this is all complete metaphysics? Theories of cosmological inflation or creation are based only on the assumption that the red-shifting of light in relation to the distance to its origin is strictly as a result of the Doppler effect. Everything else is interpretation of observations in order to fit this belief. Most serious scientists are quick to dismiss or even discredit anyone who calls into question the foundation of the belief of an expanding Universe, which is I think why discussions of that nature are suspiciously uncommon. This page is a rare example I’ve seen and the answer given sounds like an attempt to patch a theory that makes little sense, even if the result is even further contradiction. I admit I’m growing allergic to scientific speculation and attempts at over-simplifying reality, such as an article about the leading theories on dark matter that I recently read in Scientific American but couldn’t finish because it was too silly, just inventing new particles with magical properties to explain concepts the authors clearly don’t even begin to understand. Admitting we don’t know something doesn’t sell making copies, it can even be difficult to do, but intellectual honesty is essential, I believe, to enable successful effort at unlocking the truth. Isn’t the truth what we’re all after?

  42. Andrew Lane says:

    So, is this saying that objects that were in the same location at the time of the “Big Bang” have moved apart , or appear to have moved apart due to space expanding, at a speed almost* approaching the speed of light, but that the small difference* over 13+ billion years has given a time difference that has allowed our galaxy/solar system/planet/humans to form and for humans to now look in various directions and observe “old” light, but that the speed of space/universal expansion difference means that the first 300,000 years of light has passed us by and can never be seen as its passed us by?

    But, if the expansion of space is not limited by the speed of light and objects within that space are also moving apart in that expanding space, then is it that we only see light that came from a large but limited number of objects “moving” in a similar relative direction to “us”? Does this mean there are other objects emitting light and moving in other directions, or totally opposite directions in this expanding space that we will therefore never see light from?

  43. Jack Mahan says:

    How can we actually tell if those furthest galaxies actually are traveling fast away from us than the nearer ones? Might it not be that since all matter started out and blew away in all direction to begin with that it isn’t just a matter that many galaxies are simply traveling away from us at a different angle than others, some even in a directly opposite direction?
    Think of it as cars traveling at different speeds and different directions on on a multilevel ramp. Some are traveling in the same direction and elevation as yourself, others at different angles and elevations. Some are even traveling at 180* in the opposite direction. If you measure everyone’s speed as related to your own they will differ radically.
    Jack Mahan
    Laredo, Texas

  44. Tina Cartee says:

    Hello,
    Im not really sure if anyone can help me here but I figured it was worth a shot anyway so here goes…Let me start off by saying I am not a physicist or a scientist by any means nor do I claim to be and although I do consider myself a little above average as far as intelligence goes, I must admit that I know very little about physics. I am however, very observant and have an abundance of common sense and good logic. I am not actually here to ask a question, I am more so here to share a discovery I have made, yet do not understand. I have researched the internet for the last 6 months trying to educate myself and gain a better understanding of what it is that I have discovered and although I am certain of what it is that I have seen, I am not exactly sure if I am right about what causes it and I dont really know what to do with the information I have discovered because to the average person with no or very little knowledge of physics, especially dealing with cosmic microwave background radiation, solar plasma, and strong electromagnetic energy fields, what I have discovered would sound very unbelievable and would most likely cause them to think that I have an over active imagination, hallucinating or was mentally ill and that there couldnt possibly be any truth to what I have to say. I know this because even I myself had a hard time coming to terms with what I thought I was seeing. I tried to just ignore it and dismiss it as being my imagination the first few times I saw it but after months of seeing the same very similar things over and over, I knew that it wasnt just a coincidence and that it wasnt my imagination and that I needed do some research to see if there might be a scientific explanation for it so I did and I was shocked at what I found especially since there seems not to be any recorded evidence of anyone else discovering this phenomenon so what I would like to know from an expert on the subject is if I am on the right track of discovering what might be causing this…for the last 2 years I have been aware of some planetary objects headed towards our solar system. I have researched these objects and have verified with my own eyes their existence and it was then even further verified by Dr. Michael E. Brown, a professor at Caltech, with his discovery of Planet nine. I am constantly researching and watching the skies and I also keep a very close eye on many of the public skycams that are available to view. About 6 months or so ago, I began seeing objects in the skycams of things that arent normally seen in the sky, mainly reptiles and each day I seem to be seeing more and more as well as landscapes, and each time it would be a totally different scene but almost always seem to have strange reptile looking creatures in them. These images were clear enough to catch my attention but appeared to be almost made up of a cloud-like substance. I sometimes have to adjust the contrast in order to get a clearer, sharper image but the details in the images are so specific and plentiful that there is no mistaking that it is an actual image that I am seeing. After a few weeks of seeing many different reptiles and scenery, I began to see people as well, in great detail such as hair, facial expressions, nose rings made from bone and could even sometimes make out the activities that were taking place. After awhile of seeing many, many things, I noticed there was a theme to the things I was seeing and thats when I discovered that what I was seeing was images or “clips” from back in time…the time that dinosaurs and cavemen roam the earth. I saw men being attacked by reptiles/dinosaurs as well as the painful expressions on their faces. I also seen very old egyptian boats with people traveling on them and I even caught an image of a sabre tooth tiger as it opened and closed its mouth as if to roar. I began saving these images onto my computer as proof of what I have seen because I know how crazy it sounds, its unbelievable. I recently discovered an app that allows me to make videos of what I have on my screen so I now have a collection of videos as well. I feel after researching to try and figure out what was the cause of what I was seeing was, my theory is that is has something to do with the plasma and solar radiation that is now in our atmosphere that I frequently see as a thin water-like layer that covers our skies frequently, the super strong electromagnetic chaos that these planetary objects have brought into our atmosphere, the cosmic microwave background radiation and possibly the ice crystals that form in the clouds due to all the chemtrails that are being sprayed in the skies…I strongly believe that all those things combined have somehow came together and have made it possible for me to see these random clips or images of objects as they were back in prehistoric times, billions of years ago. Its the most unbelievable, amazing, and one of the most frightening things I have ever experienced in my life. If anyone could further educate me on the subject or would like to view some of my recorded material, you may contact me at tina29624@gmail.com …Thanks

  45. Connor tipping says:

    i believe that all of this is wrong

  46. Eulalio Diaz says:

    Before the so called Big Bang there was nothing, no space, no time, no gravity, no ether, no particles, no black holes. Then at the point of big bang, light traveled in straight line without interruption. And we evolved from particles of light that turned into dust. If that is correct, then how can we say that after 13 billion light years we see this light from the so called big bang. That light must have traveled in circle and came back to us now. How do you explain this?

  47. Ellison Chan says:

    When scientists talk about seeing the early Universe they are not talking about about the background radiation. They are talking about visible light or radio waves.

    They are looking with either visible light or radio telescopes. They say they can see up to 13 billion years into the past. That light not ” all around us”. There’s a direction of travel.

    You convoluted explanation does not explain that.

  48. Thomas Gutzke says:

    The one thing modern amateur physicists have been able to do is to eliminate the “where from” and “where to” in ideas like expansion of the universe. Is everything in a expanding now = Yes. Is everything located somewhere relative to everything else = Yes. Is this process of location through expansion consistent in an approximately 14 billion year regress back to a fixed point of where the big bang would have occurred = Yes. Either the big bang occured at some position relative to Earth’s current position, or there was no big bang! You can’t have it both ways. You cant say here was everywhere at the big bang, but here is not there now. Because if the big bang happened here and there, and everywhere, then time doesn’t exist, and neither does anyone reading this.

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