Starship Asterisk*

Dear Misters Neimiroff and Bonnell,

Recently we watched a video (http://www.flixxy.com/hubble-ultra-deep-field-3d.htm) by Tony Darnell in which he discussed the recent Hubble Ultra Deep Field images. During this video he says that some of the light in these images is coming from 47 billion light years away and that some of the galaxies generating this light are moving faster that the speed of light. Obviously these statements pose difficulties for the many people who presently believe the Universe to be around 13.7 billion years old. Question: HOW CAN WE GET 47 BILLION LIGHT YEARS OF SPACE INTO 13.7 BILLION YEARS OF TIME?

Perhaps some kind of visual model could be developed to show our ever-expanding Universe pitted with singularities of infinite gravity (and other phenomena) in which only a certain slice of time-space can be observed (perceived?). This is of course a bit beyond my ability. In a similiar vein, we found this model very interesting and helpful:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/ ... ine300.jpg

We hope that you may perhaps undertake to address this idea.

someoddpages wrote:HOW CAN WE GET 47 BILLION LIGHT YEARS OF SPACE INTO 13.7 BILLION YEARS OF TIME?

You may want to read this thread .

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... =8&t=17568

Your question may get moved .

Mark

someoddpages wrote:HOW CAN WE GET 47 BILLION LIGHT YEARS OF SPACE INTO 13.7 BILLION YEARS OF TIME?

I suggest you start with the wikipedia articles on Size of the Observable Universe and Comoving Distance.

In simple terms, the source of the light that was emitted 13.7 billion years ago and is just now reaching us has been moving away from us at an ever increasing rate for 13.7 billion years so that it is now 46.5 billion light years away. This is its comoving distance and is the radius of our observable universe.

I agree, this would make an interesting subject for an APOD. Maybe they could use that 3D HUDF.