Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
When we observe light that has taken 13 billion years for it to reach us we're looking at it as it was 13 billion years ago. As the universe has been expanding and the speed at which the space between objects increases, what was 13 billion light years away 13 billion years ago is now 46 billion light years away. Hope that actually makes sense.
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Cheers ... that's the way I understand it and that's exactly what confuses me/ makes no sense to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
In short, we see things were they were when they were emitted, not where they are now billions of years later  |
Precisely. We see light from something that was 13.x Gly away when the light was emitted. It shouldn't matter where the light source is now.
We have absolutely never observed anything more than 14Gly away (at time of emission), so why say limit of observability is 46Gly?
I suppose I'm getting hung up on what "observability" means, but I feel it's being misused to sound more impressive.