What I believe you're suggesting is that UDFj and the Milky Way started from the same place and time (Big Bang epicenter) and now we're 13.2 million LYs apart. For a better understanding, look at Wikipage Hubble's law, which talks about cosmological redshift.

Creig - What they are saying is they believe the universe is about 3.68 billion years old. If that galaxy is 3.2 billion LY from ours, then we have to be looking at it 3.2 billion years ago which means the image (light) we see left that galaxy when the universe was only 480 millions years old. (3.4 billion + .48 billion = 3.68 billion)

Where they determined the age of the universe really is a part of this article.

I get mystified by some of this stuff too Creig, and I'll share what I can, then ask some more questions which maybe others can address.

First off, your clever "sketches" imply that we could look "across" the big bang point of origin to the "other side", but it apparently doesn't work this way. First, the idea that there was a single point of origin is apparently a false misunderstanding, although they're always talking about the "singularity" which is, as I understand it, really just a mathematical way of saying, "it goes to zero". The farther away we look, in any direction, the farther back in time we are seeing, until we reach a limit when we just can't make out anything with any clarity. As the article suggests, the newest generation of space telescopes will hopefully extend and clarify our view.

Here's where my mind gets confused... as I understand it, these distances (and times into the past) are calculated based on red shift, which is the amount that the light from these far off sources has been stretched out by the expansion of the universe as the light has been travelling to reach us. The red shift measurement scale is calibrated by examining the red shifts of a particular type of stars called cepheid variables in galaxies fairly nearby us and then because the radiance of these special types of stars is supposedly well known we can supposedly calculate the real distance to them fairly accurately and then develop the red shift scale as a short-hand method of estimating the distance to any other star or galaxy simply checking it's red shift. Supposedly.

However, as you may have noticed, the are several assumptions made in developing this scale. If we do not accurately understand the amount of interstellar and intergalactic dust which might be out there, then our distance estimates based on radiance of the cepheid variables will be off and then the red shift scale will also be off. The entire mass of the universe will gravitationally affect the light as it travels, slowing it down and bending it's path. Maybe all these factors have been accurately taken into account, maybe not. I'm skeptical.

To address the next part of your question, the scientists can apparently calculate the current expansion rate of the universe which is established by looking at how rapidly galaxies everywhere are receding from one another. Based on that, they apparently 'rewind' the clock until the distance factor goes to zero, and that's supposedly the beginning, the "singularity". But again, note the assumptions used regarding the calibration of the distance scale.

Also, there was possibly a tiny brief moment at the beginning of everything when it all "inflated" super rapidly, even faster than the speed of light (I'm not exactly sure how that's even possible) and then slowed down to it's current rate of expansion. This is apparently shown by the evidence detected by the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation satellite which shows that the background heat of the universe is almost exactly the same temperature everywhere we look, at 2.75 degrees kelvin. It is this consistency which is apparently the evidence for the "inflationary" model, but I'm not exactly sure why.

Now then, if we look even more carefully at this background radiation, there are tiny tiny variations, like, .0002 degrees, which can be mapped, and these variations apparently arise from something described as "sound wave" transmissions through the superdense "liquid" of the early universe (which sounds like mystical nonsense to me) and from these variations in the heat pattern, density variations resulted which later caused variations in gravitation which resulted in all of the large scale galactic structure which came afterward and which we now see. Supposedly.

But I've kind of gotten off track there. The point is, exactly how old is the universe? And how can we say that something happened when the universe was 480 million years old (which is barely a blink of an eye after all this "inflation" stuff supposedly occurred)? If we've done these time reverse calculations to find the zero point when it all comes together at a "singularity", does that take the inflation period into account? I'm not sure on this point, but let's assume for the moment that all of this has indeed been figured out correctly, then... if we know correctly when the beginning was, and we know how long ago this galaxy must have formed, based on it's red shift and distance, then we can know how long after the beginning, supposedly 480 million years in this case, it formed.

Once again, all these calculations seem to me to based upon assumptions piled on top of assumptions. I really am trying to understand it all, but it often boggles my mind. Perhaps someone else could help elucidate these mysteries?

Bah, I meant to say that where they determined the age of the universe really ISN'T part of this article.

CraigC:

The whole universe is thought to be 12 to 14 billion years old. Our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old. When looking at UDFj you are looking back at the beginning (when the universe was 480,000,000 years old). That "galaxy" may be actually what the whole universe looked like. Just a 480, 000,000 year old baby.

What UDFj looks like in this picture happened 13.2 billion years ago and we will have to wait for another 13.2 billion years before we can compare what we have seen in UDFj's "today" with what is actually happening to UDFj in our "today". I wonder if man will be around that long to actually see it. We also have to somehow save this picture so we can compare the two.

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I think I did an "okay" job of keeping it simple, maybe too simple. Let me try a quick follow-up...

Suppose...

A<----(5 billion)----B----(5 billion)----Milky Way----(5 billion)----C----(5 billion)---->D

Where A, B, C, D are galaxies. In this scenario, A and D are 10 billion LY from us, while B and C are 5 billion LY from us. The red shift tells us that these four galaxies are moving away from us. Are we to assume that A and D are moving away from us at approximately the same speed (based on moving backwards in time to a singularity)? That's my understanding. Referring back to my "sketch", how do we know that The Milky Way hasn't moved, say, 3 billion LY to the "left" since the singularity? Meaning that A would have traveled 13 billion LY to the left, B 8 billion LY left, Milky way 3 billion LY left, while C only went 2 LY to the right and D 7 LY to the right?

In other words, how do we know that car (galaxy) "A" isn't traveling west at 50 mph, we're heading west at 10 mph and car "D" is going east at 40 mph? Because if that's the case, we could see light from galaxy "A" and galaxy "D" that tells us they're 13.2 billion LY away, but our own galaxy could have "moved" a billion LY or so to one side.

Final question...The universe is ~13.8 billion years old. With respect to inflation, if two galaxies started zipping away from each other from the moment of the big bang, is it correct to think that two galaxies could now potentially be up to 27.6 billion LY from each other (13.8 + 13.8)?

CriegC:

the speed of Inflation is not bound by or related to the speed of light. Additionally, inflationary recession of two galaxies doesn't occur when they are gravitationally bound to each other. As such, two galaxies that are nearby do not "start zipping away from each other at the big bang" They did not exist at the time of the big bang.

The universe (observable or otherwise) is substantially larger than 13.8 + 13.8 billion LY

Estimates for the diameter of the observable universe are in the 93 billion LY range. The actual universe may be the same size, radically larger, or possibly even, SMALLER than the observable universe.

Feel free to search wikipedia for "observable universe" for more information

I think the best answer to how do we know which galaxies are moving in which directions, is by their red shifts. Even though I've expressed skepticism about the overall calibration of the red-shift as a measurement, it is a measurement which answers your question. It tells us which galaxies are moving awat from us, which turns out to be all of them, and it tells us, with a possibly debatable degree of accuracy how fast they are moving, and therefore we can deduce (but again with possible inaccuracies) how far away they actually are.

Alright first, Mikey. First "Singularity" is not 0, the singularity in this instance is represented by the symbol for infinity. It has no set value or variable at this time. In the respect to the topic we are discussing(the Big Bang, and the beginnings of the universe), singularity is bad, because it is an unknown quantity or factor. They have no clue what the singularity actually was prior to the Big Bang. As for the inflation theory, it is not assumption upon assumption, as you stated. There are only two assumptions that are based on the current date: #1 That space/time itself(I.E. the Universe) is not bound to E=MC2, and #2 that the 4 forces were one singular force at the time of the Big Bang, and were the intial acceleration behind the super inflation.

Crieg, the first question is what is the redshift/blueshift of the galaxy, Redshift shows a object is moving away, blueshift shows it is moving towards, the second question, you make one assumption that may not be accurate in respect to inflation: That the galaxies in question are moving away from each other at the speed of or slower than the speed of light. If that were the case then in another 13.8 billion ly the light from that galaxy would then start reaching this one. Until then we would not know of its exsistance because of the matter that would compose it was zipping away since the Big Bang. Yes, it could be possible, be we may never know of that galaxy, because of the sheer distances involved, and because, as some theories suggest, the universe may still be expanding faster than the speed of light, as I said above, and if that is the case, we may never see the light from that galaxy. But yes, it is possible.

And Mikey, I think he was asking about lateral movement

...moving AWAY from us... Oops.

Alan, thanks for those links. The Michio Kaku article also had several other good resources attached. I guess I've got some more homework to do...

Thanks Mikey, Eric, Rory and Alan (and anyone else I missed).

So are we saying that UDFj, as seen currently in that photo, is 13.2 billion light years from us? Or are we saying that it was 13.2 billion light years from us when the light began its journey?

Was. Past tense, its taken 13.2 billion years for it to get here.

Eric, thanks for pointing out my misconception on "singularity". I guess I got it confused with the center of a black hole. I understand a little bit better after reading as much of Ned Wright's cosmology page as I could handle:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

Geez, after a hour or two of that, I think I'm going to stop asking dumb questions about red-shifts and dust and whether or not there really is dark matter.

At one point he says:

The Big Bang is a singularity extending through all space at a single instant, while a black hole is a singularity extending through all time at a single point.

That sums it up way better than I ever could, although I had to read that sentence about three times before I understood it (I think). Mathematically, I guess I should have said it's what you get when your denominator goes to zero, i.e. a nonsensical infinity. I'm still not clear on how that "extends through all space at a single instant." Sigh.

Here's another mind boggler from Michio Kaku's page:

Imagine the universe just a million years after it was born, Cornish suggests. A batch of light travels for a year, covering one light-year (which is the equivalent of about 5.9 trillion miles or 9.5 trillion kilometers). "At that time, the universe was about 1,000 times smaller than it is today," he said. "Thus, that one light-year has now stretched to become 1,000 light-years."

When I read that, I think my very small brane experienced a very big crunch. Naptime.

I think I will leave the Ned Wright stuff alone for now, I would need more time that I have right now to read through it and figure it out.

As for Michio Kaku's statement. substitute the material of the universe, I.E. spacetime, with putty, make is as circular as possible. Lets say that circle represents 1 LY. Now stretch it out. Keep stretch. 1 LY becomes 10, becomes 100, becomes 1000, and so on, for an indefinite period of time. Now putty will eventually stretch too far, spacetime has yet to do so, but some think it will if gravity is not able to overcome the current rate of acceleration.

I'm with MikeyMike on this...

When reports like this come out with wording like, "...the beginning of the universe...", I cringe because it implies that we know for a fact that there was a beginning. It seems very clear to me that things do not simply "pop" into existence from nothing. Additionally, all these "theories" that were developed many years ago may have some validity when we are considering our local part of space, but I believe we are going to find we need to add a lot of "compensation theories" to what we already think we know when dealing with great distances.

In the image above, it seems clear that there are much smaller and distant light sources and many look like galaxies. As MikeyMike has said, I believe that with the hundreds or even thousands of galaxies, stars, planets, moons, asteroids, dust clouds, ice, etc., between us and what we are looking at through a telescope, there is no way we are getting an accurate reading.

In my opinion, which is my and others' theory and has been for decades, we live in a "galactic blob" so to speak...a collection of possibly billions of galaxies. Two possibilities are the universe is made up of an infinite number of these blobs(containing a number of galaxies) with mostly empty space in between or the universe is an infinite blob, where if you could continue to travel infinitely, you would continue to see galaxies with no empty space. I lean towards the "galactic blob" theory as I believe the natural universe, which includes everything", organizes itself to achieve a balance. That balance is fluid and is in constant motion and, therefore, gives no possibility of a beginning or and end to the universe and we get relatively neat little packages throughout.

What amazes me is that proponents of the "big bang theory" always talk as if this was and is what happened, yet the evidence out there now and I believe what we will be seeing in the near future with the new technology we will be putting in place, will produce evidence that will dispute the big bang theory. Gravitational lensing alone puts a monkey wrench in the tool box of many of our existing theories. Many "objects" in space may be closer or farther than we think. We can't even see Pluto with any clarity and it is in our solar system. Additionally, Einstein's theory that matter is neither created nor destroyed, pending magic, is a solid theory that makes sense. This supports the theory that the universe was never created (big bang) and will never be destroyed...it will only change.

We have a long way to go before we understand what theories are accurate when looking beyond our solar system, which, by the way, we should name. Reason being, if we establish contact with an intelligent species in another solar system, we need to clarify who we are and where we live, so as mentioned in movies, shows, and video games, the "Terran System" is a good choice. We are the ones putting technology into space and are, arguably, the most intelligent species in our solar system. I believe that we will eventually establish contact with another intelligent species and at that point, we can exchange information to see what theories are accurate when dealing with great distances, which need tweaking and which hold no water. Until we can send a space probe to another solar system or galaxy, we will have to depend a lot on contacts we will undoubtedly make in the future. Maybe this will be a natural process that will take humans and those we meet to the next level of existence and understanding our universe and its properties.

Rich, you probably have not heard, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity allows cosmologists to compensate for gravitational lensing, and that the Theory of Relativity was demonstrated as viable by gravitational lensing. So how does that throw a monkey wrench into these theories, especially when cosmologists are basing these theories on the effects predicted on the Theory of Relativity?

Second, the Big Bang theory does not state that all matter in the universe was created in a single massive explosion, it contends that all matter was exuded, but not created, from a single point, called the Singularity, in which it was believe to be compressed, and was not infact an actual explosion, but rather a rapid expansion of matter that was already in exsistence.

Third, again back to the Theory of Relativity, only this time, Solid State Universe vs. Big Bang Universe. Einstein was a believe in the Solid State theory, the idea you referenced above, however the math, equations and calculations involved in the Theory of Relativity, show that the universe is not static, it its growing, expanding, it has a beginning and an end(though what that will entail remains to be seen). To that point, the universe is not created or destroyed in the manners you suggest, but rather it experiences periods of rapid expansion, and infinite compression. I do not know where you are getting your information from, but it sounds kind of incomplete

After looking over most of the responses to CreigC's post, I didn't see any mention of "blue shift." It is my understanding that whether an object is moving in the same direction in space as we are, or whether it is moving in the opposite direction in relation to our galaxy depends on whether it shows a redshift or a blue shift. Could someone who has knowledge of this please clear it up for me as to which of these shifts means which. It may also help to clear up Creig's initial confusion.

Theoretically yes, it depends on a lot of variable, such as size, luminosity, and speed.

Darren, as you are fond of short answers: Hubble helps us understand high energy physics. Physics is good. Physics helps humanity every moment of every day.

Are you serious Darren? Half the technology, medical advances, chemical products and other things you enjoy as a daily part of your life (and obviously take for granted) are a direct result of space exploration and all the knowledge we have gained as a result of studying the cosmos.

You seriously cannot be that ignorant, make your life better and do some research to realize how vital this kind of exploration is. To help you out here is a site to offer you some insight to acheive that goal. http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

Also the amount of money spent on this is a drop in the bucket of our governments spending. If you want to whine about Government spending there are other areas of with excessive waste that deserve your attention, perhaps you should focus your displeasure toward those things

Observations like this do not, in fact have a tangible effect on humanity. The technological development necessary to take the image might, but just knowing that there a galaxy existed so and so many billion years ago has vanishing effect.

On the other hand, you could ask the same thing about great literature or music, or archaeology, etc.

Do you like the teflon coating on your non-stick cookware? How about the IC chips that make almost everything work? So many things in everyday life that it's impossible to keep pointing them out or mentioning the development work that led to the products and spin-offs. All from the scientific research aimed at space. Don't forget your ray-bans. Clear to dark lenses from the development of the glass for space mens helmet windows so they don't burn out their eyes when they rotate into sunlight.

Here is an idea to answer your question Darren...

We eventually establish communication with an intelligent species in another solar system. They have been technologically advanced for over 100,000 years and have developed energy production technology that is considerably cheaper, safer and more efficient to produce than anything we have developed. They decide to help us build this system here on Earth. In the process of developing this new energy production system, we discover how to make more powerful and efficient "engines" for transportation here on Earth and in space. Additionally, we gain the ability to create smaller versions which are then taken to Mars, some moons and asteroids and used to power new mining facilities and to support humans on planets and moons we normally would not be able to live on. This opens the door to a much more productive society that puts all humans to work, developing new technologies that enables humans to irradicate diseases and starvation as we would be able to use the moon and other planets to deploy labs to develop cures and treatments for diseases and greenhouses to grow food without destroying the rest of our planet just to feed 100 billion people. By spreading through out our solar system, we would be better prepared to protect humanity from an invading and violent species that may be out there looking for a planet to relocate to as their planet may have been destroyed by a super nova. We do not want to be the Indians of the Americas watching great ships carrying highly advanced beings who come and enslave and kill us and take all of our resources and occupy our planet, do we?

Yes, it sounds like a scifi movie. But, here humans are, and in less than 100 years, we went from riding horses to putting man on the moon to sending technology to Mars and cloning animals. In less than 100 years, we went from riding a horse to our neighbor's house to see how they were doing to calling them on a wireless phone and battling them online in a video game...anywhere in the world. In less than 100 years, we went from "flying" in hot air balloons to flying a space shuttle out of Earth's atmosphere to deliver goods to scientists on a space station that orbits Earth. In less than 100 years, we went from burning wood and coal to stay warm to a nuclear power plant that can warm millions of people.

Are you getting the benefits of people doing things they have never done before?

It means I will be long dead by in that many years.

A hundred times longer than a million years. A million times longer than a hundred years. In either case, it's a really, really long time, but it's still only a tenth of a billion years.

What does it mean to you?

The time it taket to move from throwing rocks to throwing bombs.

More than I can fathom, and minuscule to the entirety (whatever that is).

So when you say space is expanding, would that be the equivalent of blob of jelly beginning to settle on a hard surface or say a balloon filling with air?

In the case of the jelly, is would reach a point where expansion would be impossible because the mass of the Jelly would be distributed within the expansion.

In the case of the balloon, mass is injected into the balloon to cause the expansion.

As with both cases, pressure (In my theory, gravity) is created by an outside force. With the jelly, it's the pressure from the mass that sits above(Contextually), causing it to expand. With the balloon, it's the force of the injection and the rigid limitation of the baloon skin that create the pressure.

-Off Topic--
Going back to the bubbles theory of Dark Matter, if light only exists within the fabric of space time, it would make sense that it would travel the path of least resistance, which would be warped space around the the bubble of dark matter. It would pick up energy created in the pressure between space-time and the object. (I equate it to a bubble of air in water. If you were to take a tube of water, with a bubble at one end, and a grain of sand at the other. If you tip the tube and let the sand grain fall, it will not pass through the bubble but travel around the bubble as the bubble floats to the top. Of cource if the grain of sand contains enough mass to overcome the pressure of the water that surrounds the bubble, or is travelling fast enough (E=MC~2), it would be possible for the grain of sand to pass through the bubble. Also, if the grain of sand does not have enough mass or speed, then it is also possible for it to be captured within the skin of the bubble(ie, the gravity well). However, you could exchange the two entities, make the bubble a solid mass, the grain move the same, taking the path of least resistance. The characteristics of that dynamic is changed by the amount of energy it would require for the grain to pass through the solid mass, but the affect on the grain would be the same in passing through the pressure/gravity created by the encapsalation of the object by the water.)

--On Topic--
So now, in the case of distance between two galaxies that supposedly evolved towards the beginning of the universe, when Scientists state that these entities are Billions of Light years away from each other, and as light travels, it can speed up/slow down, and we are say moving in opposite directions, then by theory, are we probably closer to the object, and it just took longer for the light to reach us because of fabric of space time?

I'm also curious in that looking in one direction, we find a Galaxy some 13 Billion light years away, would that mean in the other direction that we shouldn't really find galaxies that are further than 700 Million light years away.

These articles talk about distance and that because of the distance, these objects must be some of the first forming objects in the universe. Great, I'm just really wondering why there is so much distance between our entities. How did the milky way get here, if those galaxies are way over there. The expansion of space can only explain so much.

I have no doubts that Dark Matter plays a role in what we are seeing in space. And it would make some sense that if it took 13 Billion years for light to reach us because it had to negotiate it's way through Pockets of Dark Matter. But would that really put the Galaxy some 13 billion light years from Earth?

I'm also what other types of physics can affect red shift.

Dark Matter? A complete theory of gravity is required.

Dark matter is a sorry excuse to explain what we can't compensate for. It only exists if you have faith in it and then, it doesn't really exist.

Space expanding is another highly questionable theory that I have no "faith" in. The nature of matter is for it to coalesce. As it does, it leaves behind empty or mostly empty space. When "bodies" of matter are far enough away from each other, they will coalesce individually without much interaction with the next closest body. When you add an infinite number of "galactic blobs" to the mix, then you have a fairly even distribution of matter with occasional galactic impacts within these "galactic blobs". For example, Andromeda and our Milky Way will eventually collide. There is so much empty space within galaxies that there is high probability that not many actual collisions will happen, although the two will probably combine to make a much larger galaxy with the process taking many billions of years, it will be slow and relatively organized.

In my opinion, of course.

Dark matter is a sorry excuse to explain what we can't compensate for. It only exists if you have faith in it and then, it doesn't really exist.

You can sure say that again! One might as well say God/Thor/Zeus makes it happen that way just because he wants to. Equally nonsensical.

O.k. I am going to simplify the whole dark matter deal with four words and a symbol: Dark Matter=Place Holder. In other words no one is claiming to know what dark matter exactly is, all they know is that there is something out there with additional mass that is otherwise invisible in any light spectrum, that is having an effect on the visible matter in the universe, just like dark energy is a place holder for what ever force is causing the purported accelerated expansion of the universe, and before anyone brings up the experiement last year that supposedly proved dark matter does not exsist, because of an alternative calibration method with the WMAP data, keep in mind that the experiments validity is suspect at best because of the calibration method, and the omission of integral data.

Nothing can travel through space faster than light but it is possible that the expansion of space itself can occur at a rate faster than the speed of light. Even if the expansion of space followed the lightspeed-limit then you would still have to factor in the expansion of space with the speed and direction at which objects are moving.

...unless I've got this all wrong, that is...

As far as looking faster than light, that still wouldn't allow us to see the future, because the photons haven't gotten there yet. If you could see faster than light then and it allowed you to effectively see the future it would be very odd because you'd hear the present, but could only see the future, so nothing would match up. Either way it's all very silly.

The Expansion can move faster than light because it is not an object or energy, it is a position.

Take a pair of scissors and open them. The cutting point (position) between the two blades move toward you much faster than the blades themselves move outward. Take two sticks infinitely long and cross then so the far ends are 1 LY apart. Move them so the far ends come apart and finally separate. The far ends cannot move faster than light speed so the fastest they can separate is 1 year, but the space opening between then moves outward at something less than infinite speed.

Man !!

I want some of YOUR drugs !

Brit? Aussie? Commonwealth citizen right?

Could just be a "Hitchikers Guide" fan, that is a comparison line in the story to how vast space is. Doesn't have to be from a socity area just because they know a known phrase from there...

For shame Skip Nicholson for stereotyping (I am frim SoCal and live in Sweden)

Foxy, gimme a break. It was a friendly comment and not intended as a slight or stereotyping.

Hey, can you get me some autographed pictures of the Swedish Bikini Team?

(PLEASE NO CARDS AND LETTERS ABOUT OBJECTIFYING THOSE POOR SCANTILY CLAD BLONDE WOMEN FROM SCANDINAVIA)

"Steep learning curve" You can say that again! I occasionally get excited about this stuff and do some reading, in the last couple of weeks I've put in quite a number of hours and I'm not sure if I'm even more confused than I was before. Here's a good resource, but it's pretty heavy on the math:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

Navy,

That has always been my favorite question, if the universe is expanding then what is it expanding into? The answer is always the same, nothing, it's just expanding. Not very fulfilling, but there it is. Anyone with an iPod or something similar can subscribe to Astronomy Cast. It's a great podcast that gives enough info to make things understandable, but doesn't make your head want to explode.

Roy, wouldn't the answer depend on whether or not you subscribe to the beliefe of M theory? Eh regardless, I think it is expanding into something, but we lack the... mental fortitude, for lack of a better term, to comprehend what that something is. Its kind of like trying to comprehend what was before the Big Bang, or trying to comprehend the vast distances involved in the universe in something other than light years, which has a tendancy to cause random head explosions.

Eric,

I've done some reading on M theory and there are quite a few similarities between that and the Big Bang. If you subscribe to M and it's infinte number of "branes" then that only begs the question of where did the "branes" come from as opposed to where did the infinitely hot and dense singularity of the Big Bang come from. Though mind blowing to be sure, these are interesting subjects to try and ponder.

Aye yes it is, but you also hit on the $64,000 question, where did everything the "branes" are composed of come from. The person who can propose a theory for that in our life time either has a level of intelligence that rivals that of Einstein, or they are not of this Earth

Excellent analogy NavyVet

Eric,

Endless Universe (Steinhardt & Turok) is a good read on the subject, though it hurts to do so. Basically, its all math and theory, none of which can be proven observationally, but it supposedly all works out on paper.

My bad, 186,282 MILES/sec.

I can see how it could Woodysr. Just the distances involved are difficult to comprehend in a realistic manner, let alone the science and math behind it for anyone who hasn't spent all of their lives studying. I study this stuff as a point of interest and fascination, but once I start reading about the distances, and the measurements, and math behind the theories, I have to tell myself its breaktime before my head blows up

It is my understanding that at least one "explorer" type vehicle was destroyed upon orbital insertion.. due to a mix-up between meters and miles!

Fortunately, I am multilingual with miles, meters, furlongs and paces... ;>)

Parsecs, light-years just confuse my old mind!

Because the object is is 13.2 billion light years away.

picture this pathetic time line:

(BANG) -- +480m --- new galaxy --- dead galaxy -- +12bn --- our new galaxy

now add in a incredibly long line for how far we moved in 13bn at 186,282 MILES/sec.

on a SHORT comparison... and one you can test yourself, If I fly a supeorsonic jet over you with your eyes closed.. then open where you hear it : freeze frame... the jet is FAR away.. not next to you.. the sound is there, you hear it, you know it, but the jet is nowhere... the sound took time to get to you. Space is kinda the same basic point... the light is like the jet sounds.. it traveled 13.2bn years but compared to us, we are just opening our eyes