Would a galaxy that is more than 10 billion years old be too far away from the earth to see?

Question

Even with the most powerful telescope on the earth.

Answer 1

It depends, you have to understand space and time and the universe in its grand scale.

You seem a little confused perhaps you stated your question wrong.

You have to understand that light travels at the speed of light. When you look at stars and galaxies in the sky you are seeing light that left those bodies a long time ago. When you look through a telescope you are looking into the past.

Just because a galaxy is over 10 billion years old it does not mean that it is far away

You may be 40 years old and live next door to me or across the country!

However.....

If a galaxy is 10 billion light years away we could theoretically see it with a telescope such as the Hubble Space Telescope or the Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, but it would also have to be at least 10 billion years old. If for instance we look at that galaxy we would be seeing light that left that galaxy 10 billion years ago. We can't see the present using a telescope we can only see the past.

Currently it is estimated that the universe is over 15 billion years old and it is estimated that we can see objects at least 13 billion light years away.

It was thought that when the Hubble space telescope was launched we would be able to see the beginning of the Universe. We have learned much since then.

[;-)

BTW; Most of the answers here (except mine) are wrong.

1 The universe is not expanding faster than the speed of light only light can move at the speed of light and NOTHING can go faster than the speed of light...!!!

..

Answer 2

The galaxies that were resolved by the Hubble deep field pictures do not exist to-day.
These galaxies were estimated to be at a distance of more than 13 billion light years and expanding at an accelerated rate.
The fact that they do not exist belies the expansion theory.
The universe is a finite entity and will eventually go out of existence.

Answer 3

No, not too far away. Our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to be about 13.6-billion years old, and the sun is some 10-billion years old.(..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#Age..)

However, there is a kind of horizon to the universe beyond which any existing galaxies are receding from us faster than the speed of light so we'll never be able to see them. No, this faster-than-light recession doesn't violate relativity because it's really space that's expanding faster than the speed of light, not the galaxies moving faster than the speed of light *through* space.

Answer 4

Assuming you mean past about 13.7 billion or "wherever the particle horizon is", then correct. It's essentially a horizon wherein anything beyond that is moving away from us at faster than light, and light emitted from something beyond such a horizon will never be able to catch up to us for us to see it.

Answer 5

technically yes since the universe is older than that but I think the spirit of your question is reffering to light that is further than the amount of distance covered by light in the age of the universe in which case the answer is no.

Answer 6

Probably good to have good information in answers.yahoo.com"

The age of the sun:

"The Sun's current age, determined using computer models of stellar evolution and nucleocosmochronology, is thought to be about 4.57 billion years."

Answer 7

No