From Edward N. Haas:
Re: Discovery of “furthest object” said to pave way for probing early cosmos (April 28): Even the media have been telling us about this most distant object ever observed. So far, though, no one has said a word about precisely how distant it is. I would certainly like to know both what that distance might be and why no one mentions it. Some say the universe is 93 billion light years in diameter. If this most distant object is calculated to be at least 45 billion light years away from us, that would strongly indicate the truthfulness of the 93 billion light year estimate. So, precisely what is the calculated distance of this most distant object ever observed, and why is no one mentioning it?
2 Comments:
I wonder too. If the universe is 13.5 Billion years old, then the maximum distance from the center, assuming the Big Bang works for you, is..wait for it...here it comes...13.5 Billion light years, also assuming nothing travels beyond the speed of Light; this being what all current theories of physics are based upon. Conclusion? Maximum diameter of the Universe is 27 Billion Light Years (13.5 x 2).
Which also of course means that the light from objects further away than, say, 13.5 billion light years have not arrived here yet and we don't know if the big bang encompasses the whole of the universe or only a part of it. Big bang theory has always seemed to me suspiciously like "we don't know what is out there so we say there is nothing", a lot like "there be dragons and an abyss at the end of the earth."
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