Hubble Found A Galaxy Far, Far Away

The Hubble is a grand instrument. Ever stop to think why our fine government would spend money on such a purely humanitarian thing. Think what it can do for the military when aimed at the earth on a clear day. The humanitarians usually only get it when it is dark.

It's no secret that the optics were modifications of existing military telescopes. Still it's a magical device and a credit to the USA's space program. ffeJ

Well, of course that Galaxy may well no longer exist.

We only ever perceive things as they existed in the past.

Kind Regards....

"

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light."

"For most of its early life, the universe languished in "dark ages" when matter in the expanding universe cooled and formed clouds of hydrogen. Eventually matter began to clump into stars and galaxies that radiated light, heating up the universe and clearing the fog." USA Today article]

I have always said that science is the study of God's works and isn't it amazing that these 'ignorant" sheepherders got it so right.

The Hubble is great and next we need a Super-Hubble to see even more. I remember standing on a road near my house in the early '50's watching the military using a big telescope to take pictures of Cornell University 5+ miles away across the Cayuga Lake valley.

I don't profess to understand but it does interest me to "try" now and again.

Here's what Davis and Lineweaver said about it in their March, 2005, article in Scientific American:

"What does mark the edge of observable space? Here again there has been confusion. If space were not expanding, the most distant object we could see would now be about 14 billion light-years away from us, the distance light could have traveled in the 14 billion years since the big bang. But because the universe is expanding, the space traversed by a photon expands behind it during the voyage. Consequently, the current distance to the most distant object we can see is about three times farther, or 46 billion light-years."

Thus follows that light CAN travel faster than itself and still lives within the confines of relativity. Now that is clever.

One thing that also confuses me, and I understand that a lot of others are equally confused about it to the point of scientific wrist slapping, is that some say the universe is approx. 46 billion LY big (observable), but others state :

Astronomical observations indicate that the universe is 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years old and at least 93 billion light years across.

Now that is a big difference, who is right?

What's a few billion years between scientists...

It's all relative anyway,,,,,..... Depends on who your relatives are...

Hi Case!

I don't pretend to know a lot about this either, but if the universe was created by a single big bang, then it would be logical to assume it is more or less spherical in shape. It is not likely that we are at the exact center, but perhaps not too far from it. In that case, the most distant objects in the direction looking through the center of the universe, wherever that may be, should be farther away than the most distant objects in the opposite direction. So around 46 billion light years in one direction, and maybe 47 in the other, does add up to the 93 billion ly diameter. That is only 2 significant digits, or maybe 1 1/2, of precision, Don't forget rounding error!

D

Dick

One thing that also confuses me, and I understand that a lot of others are equally confused about it to the point of scientific wrist slapping, is that some say the universe is approx. 46 billion LY big (observable), but others state :

Astronomical observations indicate that the universe is 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years old and at least 93 billion light years across.

Now that is a big difference, who is right?

If I understood correctly, both estimates rely on the speed of light and the 13.7 billion year old age of the universe. But the smaller estimate does not take into account the recently discovered accelerating expansion of space itself. The larger estimate does include the effect of expanding space.