Inside the Race to See the Edge of the Universe

[dexter]

We're in the middle of a billion dollar telescope building boom, with new ground based observatories racing to see first light in the 2020s.

 

[YeBeWarned]

there are galaxies that are moving away from us with the speed of light, so technically it will be hard to detect them even with bigger telescopes .

 

[krash]

We're in the middle of a billion dollar telescope building boom, with new ground based observatories racing to see first light in the 2020s.

there are galaxies that are moving away from us with the speed of light, so technically it will be hard to detect them even with bigger telescopes .

I know the title is probably not to be taken literally but still,

There are physical limits to the distance that we can see. Two of them at least.

First is the fact that light takes time to travel from A to B and since the universe has only been around for so long (around 13.8 billion years) the max that any particle of light has ever gotten to travel for is 13.8 billion years. Coupling this time constraint with the accelerating expansion of space we have calculated that until today only light that was produced within a distance of 46.5 billion light years from any point has had enough time to reach that point, i.e. light produced beyond 46.5 billion light years from us is still on its way and hasn't reached yet. Hence, beyond this limit we cannot see anything, no matter how powerful the telescope. This limit is called the observable universe, every single thing that we have ever seen, observed, recorded or known of resides within this observable universe. We have no clue what is outside of it. Now as time goes on this limit obviously will keep on increasing.


But then comes in the second reason. Space itself is expanding at an accelerated rate and there comes a point after a certain distance travelled (rather time passed) by light where the light travelling through a region of space is slower than the expansion of space through which it's travelling and hence can't ever pass through it. Imagine you are trying to get from one end of a one meter long carpet to the other. However, by the time you cover half a meter of distance on the carpet the carpet itself has stretched to a total length of 2 meters and so and so forth. Hence, light produced beyond this distance from us will never reach us, no matter how much time passes, i.e. we will never see or know what is beyond this limit, it is physically impossible.

So no, there cannot be a race to see the edge of the universe because we never will be able to. Besides, most modern theorists believe that there is no such edge of the universe any way.