After the Big Bang, the Universe was almost perfectly uniform, and full of matter, energy and radiation in a rapidly expanding state. As time goes on, the Universe not only forms elements, atoms, and molecules which clump and cluster together, leading to stars and galaxies, but expands and cools the entire time. (NASA / GSFC)

How Did The Universe Expand To 46 Billion Light-Years In Just 13.8 Billion Years?

If you think it expanded faster than light-speed, you need to read this.

If the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, and the speed of light is truly our cosmic speed limit, how far away should we be able to see? The answer seems obvious: 13.8 billion light-years, since a light-year is the distance light can travel in a year, and nothing can go faster than that.

Unfortunately, like a great many answers that seem obvious when you apply your logical common sense to them, that’s not how things actually work. In reality, if you were to look at the most distant thing of all you can possibly see, and ask “how far away is it,” the answer is much farther than that: 46 billion light-years. That might sound impossible, but it’s not. You just have to expand your way of thinking.

The original conception of space, thanks to Newton, as fixed, absolute and unchanging. It was a stage where masses could exist and attract.(AMBER STUVER, FROM HER BLOG, LIVING LIGO)

Traditionally, the way you most often think of a distance is by taking two points and drawing a line between them. It’s something we learn to do as kids, and keep with us into adulthood. For most applications, there’s no problem in doing this, whether we use a ruler, an odometer…