How can we see farther than 13.8 billion light years?

Even if the fabric of space didn’t change over time, there are plenty of objects we can see today that could be farther away than 13.8 billion light-years. If a distant object emitted light and then moved quickly away from us, it could be just about as far away today as double the light-travel distance.

Can we see a galaxy 20 billion light years?

Average distances between galaxies are increasing with time. Could we see a galaxy that is 20 billion light-years away? (Assume that we mean a “lookback time” of 20 billion years.) No, because it would be beyond the bounds of our observable universe.

Can we see galaxies 15 billion light years away?

The visible universe appears to have a radius of 15 billion light years simply because the universe is about 15 billion years old. Galaxies we see near the edge of the visible universe emitted their light when they were much closer to us, and they will now be much further away.

How many light years can we see?

But 13.8 billion light years is far too small to be the right answer. In actuality, we can see for 46 billion light years in all directions, for a total diameter of 92 billion light years.

Is 92 billion light years big enough?

And so 92 billion light years might seem like a large number for a 13.8 billion year old Universe, but it’s the right number for the Universe we have today, full of matter, radiation, dark energy, and obeying the laws of General Relativity.

How big is the universe with dark energy?

But in a Universe with dark energy, that gets pushed out to an even greater number: 46 billion light years for the observed dark energy our cosmos possesses. expanding Universe. Definitively, only GR’s predictions match what we observe.

How far away can we see the universe?

If the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, and the speed of light is truly our cosmic speed limit, how far away should we be able to see? The answer seems obvious: 13.8 billion light-years, since a light-year is the distance light can travel in a year, and nothing can go faster than that.