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How is it possible for the Hubble telescope to see light from 13.1 billion light years when nothing can travel faster than the speed of light and the age of the universe is only 13.7 billion years?
Wiki User
∙ 7y ago
What the Hubble Space Telescope is seeing is light. Therefore nothing is traveling faster than the speed of light. Since it takes a very long time for light from the edge of the universe to arrive to earth, it can see what happened at near the beginning of the universe. Also, the universe is 13.8billion years old. And technically things light photons cantravel faster than the speed of light in certain conditions. Light is only unsurpassed in speed when it is in a vacuum like space.
Wiki User
∙ 7y ago
Wiki User
∙ 14y agoFirst of all, that would still be within range, right? However, it seems that the farthest objects we can see are something like 40 or 50 billion light-years away, that is to say, they are retreating from us faster than the speed of light. What happens here is that, in a way, space itself is expanding. The objects move at speeds below their speed of light in their own frame of reference, but according to the General Theory of Relativity, it is quite possible that space itself will expand, causing the distance between two far-away objects to increase at more than 300,000 km every second. For more information, read the Wikipedia article on "metric expansion of space".
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What does Galileo have to do with the telescope?
Galileo invented and assembled the modern telescope that we use in our world today.
How deep is the universe?
From our perspective the most distant galaxies we can see in any direction are roughly 20 billion light years away. The precise topology of the universe is not really that of an expanding sphere. There may well be nothing--not even nothing--beyond the "edge" of the universe.
How can the universe have a greater distance than its age if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light how is it possible that it is larger than 13.7 billion light years?
Nothing within the Universe can travel faster than the speed of light, but the Universe itself expanded to most of its present size with a rapid expansion event very early during the Big Bang. This rapid expansion occured independently of the laws which function within the Universe (i.e. those which limit speeds to c).
If nothing can travel the speed of light how did you get 15 billion light years away from the edge of the universe in 15 billion years?
We didn't, the big bang was a rapid expansion of space-time. The formation of the universe, not a literal explosion of matter. Really good question though.
What is the observable universe?
The observable Universe is the part of the Universe we can see from Earth because the light from all the objects in it has had enough time to reach us. Light from outside the observable Universe has yet to reach Earth. The reason we can only see part of the Universe is because of the limited speed of light, and the expansion of the Universe, which is faster than that speed. According to Einstein, nothing in the Universe can move faster than light, but nothing stops the expansion of space from moving faster than light. This results in a large part of the Universe being completely invisible to us.
Which of these is used in a radio telescope?
Nothing on that list is used in a radio telescope.
Can the grandfather paradox actually exist in the universe?
no, it is definitely not possible and therefore nothing to worry about when time travelling
How is it possible for our light horizon to be 40 billion light years away when the universe is only 13.7 billion years old?
That means that this "horizon" is receding faster than the speed of light from us. In Special Relativity, moving faster than the speed of light is not possible, but in general relativity, it is possible under certain circumstances. "Locally", nothing can move faster than the speed of light - in this case, informally, it is "space itself that is expanding".
Did Edwin Hubble have anything to do with the Hubble Space Telescope?
No, Edwin Hubble had nothing directly to do with the Hubble Telescope, it was named for him because he profoundly changed the understanding of the nature of the universe. Hubble died before the the physical exploration of space began. Hubble also created his own Hubble telescope back in 1929 but it is not the orbiting Hubble telescope. Go to the NASA website for more information.
How can the universe be 156 billion years in diameter if it is only 14 billion light years old?
The diameter must be expressed in a unit of distance/length - for example in light-years - NOT in years. The answer is that the distant parts of the Universe are going away from us, faster than the speed of light. Inside its own local space, nothing can move faster than the speed of light. But in the case of the expansion of the Universe, you might say that space itself is expanding. This makes it possible for objects to move away from us faster than light.
What is most of the universe?
Nothing...or dark matter.Only 0.03% of our universe are the stars,the planets,the galaxies...99.97% of the universe is nothing...
Who saw the center of the universe?
The center of the universe would be the location where the Big Bang took place some 13 and a half billion years ago. This location has not been precisely pinpointed by astronomers. But it could probably be seen by the Hubble telescope, wherever it may be. Chances are there is nothing there, since the Big Bang caused everything to move rapidly away from that location. All you would see is an empty space. bear in mind that the big bang is only a theory as for the location well when you look at the size of the universe (the known part of it ) .................................................
