Today, there's an article about how scientists discovered a black hole 13 billion light years away from earth. This confuses me because if the universe is only 13.7 billion years old (from the point of the big bang), how could an object get so far away from earth if objects in space are moving away from each other at a speed substantially less than the speed of light? Further, wouldn't the point of the big bang be the center of the universe, meaning that there's still a center now with "edges" expanding into the unknown? I would think that wherever one was in the universe one would be able to look the same distance in each direction, which would imply that from each's vantage point, one is in the center. If that's true, what exactly is the shape of the universe? Does it "wrap around" on itself? Lastly, if one could see 13.7 billion light years away in any direction, would one be looking at the big bang itself?
2007-06-07 06:19:41 · 4 answers · asked by Stephen L 6 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
This is a very difficult question to answer, from what I understand you can not find a centre to the universe, the big bang, scientists claim happened everywhere at the same time, that's quite a statement to make about what the same people claim was a point smaller than an atom. A black hole can't be seen, they are discovered by observing what is happening to stars that are close to one. Being able to do that is a feat that is beyond my comprehension. Snow that appears on your TV set when it not connected to a signal is said to be the remnants of the big bang, there are times when I am tempted to throw my hands in the air and give trying to undersatand what these scientists claim.
2007-06-10 12:25:51 · answer #1 · answered by johnandeileen2000 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If two objects are 13 billion ly apart, it takes light 13 billion years to travel that distance irregardless of how two things are moving. That light is still coming at us at the sped of light. The center of the universe is everywhere. It started everywhere at the same time and since the "big bang" happened erywhere at the same time we can all see it. It's signature is in the cosmic background radiation.
2007-06-07 13:29:33 · answer #2 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
And what if we are receiving a "fake" image from those distant corners...because we cannot check them out...anyway all those information are mere history...an ancient one. Let's speculate further: what if our means of detection were altered at the very beginning, presuming that at the Big Bang many processes started in the same location, and when some of them arrived to those distant corners, the feed-back information a priori is altered because we can decode them only through an inherited decoder, programmed not to get awareness of the reality itself. So my opinion is, that all that ancient history is very unreliable...
2007-06-07 13:44:59 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
it means it would take 13.7 billion years for us to get there if we were to travel to it.
2007-06-07 13:28:13 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋