How deep into the universe can scientists see?

Answer 1

Just recently using gravitational lensing we have seen back 13.2 billion years or approx. 500 million years after the Big Bang.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2007/07/16/a_look_way_way_back/

What we see are galaxies as far as we can tell.

The scientists are scratching their heads.
This puts the Big Bang theory in trouble. It was based on the reverse calculations of the expansion of the universe and our understanding in how long it takes for a galaxy to form.

Either the universe is much older than we thought, expansion is a local event (relative to the size of the universe) or it had no beginning.

Answer 2

The size of the universe may be no indication of it's age.
From our solar system the universe can't be less than about 5 billion light years radius,but it may be much older in years.
The farthest galaxies seen by the Hubble don't exist to-day.
90% of the observable universe does not exist.
Any information that could tell the true age of the universe may not exist or be available.
The universe is a finite entity so it must have a beginning and an end.
A universe in an accelerated state of expansion doesn't make sense.

Answer 3

The part we can see is determined by the age of the universe. For example, suppose that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, as indicated by recent measurements from the WMAP satellite. That means that the farthest away from the earth that we can see, in any direction, is 13.7 billion light-years - i.e., the distance light can travel in the time since the universe was formed.

Note that we are able to see objects which are currently farther away than this distance, since the universe is expanding, and the objects would have moved farther away in the time since they emitted the light which is just reaching us now. So what I really should say is that the visible universe contains all the objects whose light had to travel less than 13.7 billion light-years to reach us. For anything that is farther away, the light from it would not yet have had a chance to get here.

Answer 4

The great thing is that we can see very far into the past. Unfortunately, we cannot see so far into the past that started it all.

How can one think that the universe has boundaries?" At the same time it would be impossible to think that there are any boundaries. Endless space and time is for us easy to think, but to really indulge in that theory is impossible.

How can the space and time be endless? I personally do not know. Is is possible? I Suppose so, but it is a question that one cannot answer. How in the world and the universe be unending? That is my question. Must there be a barrier that stops the line between our universe and another? We all ask this question.

Answer 5

Are you asking how far out can scientists theoretically see, or how far out can they actually see? The theoretical distance is approximately 13.6 billion light years; whereas, the actual distance is approximately 10 billion light years.

With NASA's Hubble Telescope, we can now see out to almost 10 billion light years. Thus, we can see about 75% of the way out to our own observational horizon (13.6 billion light years).

Since objects beyond the horizon would be receding from the observer at speeds greater that that of light—in violation of Special Relativity—there must exist a cosmic "sensor" that prevents the observer from ever seeing beyond his/her particular horizon: galactic red shift.

CALTECH CLAIM OF 13.2 B LIGHT YEARS:
DON'T BELIEVE IT! The current maximum distance scientists can directly see is approximately 10 B light years.

If the Universe is only 13.6 billion years old, how can we see objects that are now 47 billion light years away (and further)?

First of all the angle between you and a distant star changes: it is different now than when the star first emitted the light. This influences how you perceive the distance.

In addition, when talking about the distance of a moving object, we mean the spatial separation NOW, with the positions of both objects specified at the current time. In an expanding Universe, this distance NOW is larger than the speed of light times the light travel time—due to the increase of separations between objects as the Universe expands. This is not due to any change in the units of space and time, but simply caused by things being farther apart now than they used to be. The distance between galaxies is constantly expanding.

Such are the consequences of Hubble's law of cosmic expansion coupled with Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity!

Answer 6

Robert B. is so right in his conclusions that the newest observations put the established Big Bang theory in trouble.
He is right in the three possible alternate ways to look at it - but I would add another one:
- The universe could be an act of creation. I know this is not accepted scientifically because it contradicts the present atheist paradigm of modern science.

Answer 7

In order to see something the light from the object has to come and hit the back of your eye. Given that the light travels at a very high speed about 3X10^8 meters/second using Sophisticated telescope (to concentrate the light) I bet we can see events that happened millions of years ago in far away space and their images are just now getting to us. So I don't think there is a limit to how far we can see into universe I think what limits us is just time. Well at least that's what I think, there is a good chance I am wrong!

Answer 8

dont know