The Most Distant Light in the Universe?

With no disrespect to the great minds in astrophysics, The Vedas state that the universe has a definite circumference and coverings of the same elements within it (begginning with earth, water, fire, air and ether, that’s why it’s dark, like the inside of a basketball. There are billions of universes floating like bubbles in a great cosmic ocean. This concept of billions of “light years” is questionable.

I think we should time warp to that thing thru a worm hole. Shouldn’t take mor than an hour or so.

If space is curved (Einstein proved it), then maybe we’re actually looking back at ourselves billions and billions and billions of light years ago.

I wonder sometimes how the people who claim the universe is about 6000 years old because the bible says so explain things like light that took billions of years to get here. I’m sure I don’t want to know the answer, because I’m sure it will make me angry.

I wonder if the galaxy is much older than they believe…
If the light if this is explosion is just now arriving to earth(meaning it happened 13 Billion years ago) then if there are object farther away, we won’t even know they exist because they behind the veil of time.
I watched a documentary on the gamma burst mentioned in the article. Those things are deadly events; wiping out all or a sizable chunk of the galaxy it happened in. If one occured in the milky way galaxy…life on earth would be obliterated in an instant… very scary ,and even more so when there’s nothing we can do about it.

God must have a lot of children!!! Christ is probably not God’s only child.

Is this right? 76 sextillion, four hundred quintillion miles? I tried to figure it out. “Since the universe itself is believed to be 13.7 years old”, usually I don’t nitpick, but um what should that really be? Anyway, that’s really far out.

“Let’s see – nothing travels faster than light. If that’s true, how did we get here before that light did?”
The expansion of the universe doesn’t occur at the ‘edge’ of the universe, but everything within the universe (the whole universe) is expanding. In Einstein’s parlance – the speed of light is the speed limit within space-time, however space-time itself is expanding. Therefore for this reason many objects in the universe will be moving relative to the Earth faster than the speed of light. Some of these objects might never be visible from the Earth because their light may never reach us.

Can we make it there before the aliens arrive.

Matt, I had to do something with the 400. You rounded it off, and they did, too in the article but not the title; I’d say no big deal but its a huge big deal heh. Anyway, that table sat your link stops at octillion. What comes next? Non(t)illion? Dec(a)tillion? Now I know I’m being silly because I will never remember it anyway. Scientific notation (abbreviation of these huge numbers and the teeny tiny ones) was almost my undoing.

I think the Republicans are somehow responsible for this gamma-ray burst.

I can recall sitting around with people like SDR, AndyR, BridgeToSomwhere, and Yang smoking talking about things like this. It truely boggles the mind- its way cool.

GreggW:
I’ll like for you to show us where the Bible says the universe is 6K……
Just as man is still trying to figure out the cosmos, man is still trying the understand the Maker of the cosmos….

I’m assuming that should be 13.7 Billion years old. I’ve heard the earth is estimated to be upwards of 40 billion. I wonder how they can estimate this stuff- Posted by: spark
The Earth is not 40 billion years old. You’re off by about a factor of 10. I’m assuming you made a typo. The age of the Earth is estimated to be around 4.54 billion years. The age was determined by C.C. Patterson using uranium-lead isotope dating of meteorite material.

RELATIVITY: NOTHING IS LOST OR GAINED IN TRANSFORMATION—EINSTEIN?

Eddies in the space-time continuum.

Hmmmm. “In my Mother’s house are many dust bunnies.

Rakko, my wife and your mother must be lost twins of the astral plain!

weasly:
“If a gamma ray explosion destroys everything in its surrounding, why do we the see other bright objects next to it?”
Answer: While that photo shows other objects in the same field of views, you can rest comfortably knowing the other objects are nowhere near the far-off exploding star. Understand?
Example: Of the stars in the Big-dipper, they are all at very different distances from us. They are not as near each other as they would appear to be.

Andy (in his simple way) raises a very profound point. How did we get here faster than the light did if everything was all in one place at the big bang?
Physicists will say that nothing moves faster than light, but they give themselves a big loophole called cosmic inflation. They say that at some time in the past the universe did expand much faster than light. But they don’t know how and don’t know why. I’m skeptical. I’ll believe it when they can explain it.

I still don’t understand the difference between expansion and inflation

As a pastor and a guy very interested in all this cool astronomy stuff, I have to disagree with Theuje. Agreed, nowhere in the Bible is it written that the earth is 6k years old. However, when you take a literal interpretation of the Bible, there is no room for an exponentially greater amount of time. The other problem is, if you believe in 6 literal days of Creation, which I believe in for a host of reasons, it is impossible for things to happen out of order from Genesis 1. If the “light” was the big bang, how could plants begin to grow before the evolutionary timetable currently laid out by science.
Indeed the Bible and Science are not at odds. Bottom line is this: God, when He created everything, far beyond our understanding, created everything we see mature. That means, full size trees, ones that look much older. He created rocks and mountains. He created stars on the brink of explosion, so that we would see them now, even though they look billions of light years away.
God is the loving Creator-designer who imagined this world, created it, and loves it.

Saltshaker are you really serious?
Im with skullridershadowhero on this one love the jebus thing saw it on the simpsons & use it quite regulary.
FYI for anyone who has never watched the Discovery channel the universe is ever expanding in all directions moving away from within itself, even if we could travel at the speed of light space is expanding at a faster rate and we would never get there.

Jennifer, you really believe the Discovery Channel? Pit the Bible against the Discovery Channel, that’s what you’re saying.
And I don’t get what the Simpson thing is about?

“I have read that 96% of the universe is made up of “dark matter” and “dark energy” with only 4% being visible. If the visible 4% is spread over a distance of 76,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles, then how much do you think we really understand about even that 4%? It seems to me that only a fool would read 4% of a book and profess to an expert or even have a clear understanding.
”
The reason scientists know that dark matter and dark energy exists is because they are clearly inferred by the physics that is understood, tested and known to be true. As laypeople, it is a mistake to assume that because you or I can’t understand something that it must be wrong, or can be dismissed, or that experts in the field are ‘fools’.

I’ve read the Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana). There are detailed descriptions of our universe, how it was created, by whom, when, and why. I can’t believe every time I read something on astronomy, the Vedas – the most ancient and complete source of transcendental knowledge, are not even mentioned! So much speculation!

SDR, one could take 4% of the 317 words in the article above and come to the conclusion “Most of NASA’s scientists, young and old, now believe the universe was designed”. Don’t call me a fool or dismiss me; at least I told you I was basing my conclusion on a 4% understanding.

Indeed the Bible and Science are not at odds. Bottom line is this: God, when He created everything, far beyond our understanding, created everything we see mature. That means, full size trees, ones that look much older. He created rocks and mountains. He created stars on the brink of explosion, so that we would see them now, even though they look billions of light years away. Posted by: saltshaker
I’ve heard this argument may time’s but it is fundamentally flawed. Assuming that god created the world only 6000 are so years ago, with the light from distant stars already reaching earth, then any object greater then 6000 light years away should appear static. For example distant regularly variable object such as Pulsars would not be visible in distant galaxies under such a scenario. But they are so there must be something wrong with your hypotheses, unless of course you’re say god is some kind of cosmic liar.
Rather that argue that god create the universe with the appearance of great age why not simply argue that he actually create it with great age. That the act of creation would have encompassed both past and future events, then move on from there. That would be within his power would it not?

I’m a physicist, also a Christian – also studied the scriptures for many years. All truth is consistent – and there is evidence everywhere that the universe is ancient 13 – 14 BillYrs and the earth about 4.5 – it’s written in every rock, every star, every organism. The 6000 years idea came from Bishop James Ussher of the Anglican Church. He wasn’t infallible and wasn’t a prophet, he made a mistake – he assumed the biblical genealogies of the patriarchs was listed as single generations and complete. He also assumed nothing preceded Adam. Both these ideas are contradicted – even if we only use the bible as our primary source. Most christians think this anyway. I don’t think God wanted to trick us. If anything, everything we learn here tends to increase the grandness of the creation.

Dyersburg: It is not my experience that Scientists claim to have all the answers. Most I have encountered claim categorically that they don’t have all the answers. However some things are just beyond question from an evidence standpoint. For example, the universe being vastly older than 10,000 years. Scientists will certainly be very forthright when challenged on such things simply owing to the evidence supporting their position. On other matters such as the nature of dark matter, there is considerable disagreement and scientists propose different theories all the time. As far as this article is concerned, there seems very little debatable science there to me.

Gerald:
1) I think both “Speculation” and “Guessing” are both equally bad words and not what science is about.
2) The initiation of the universe might have been supernatural – I suspect no one will ever be able to prove that one way or the other since all known science breaks down at t=0 (The Big Bang). However that is not what you seem to be saying. You seem to say that religious literature should be accepted as the truth of how the universe is and works now, rather than scientific evidence. I personally don’t believe this. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that there are many different religions and countless different interpretations of holy scriptures for each religion. I presume you disagree with Christians who take a literal view of the book of Genesis for example.

Gerald: I think we have exhausted this conversation. You have said you believe science is guessing and/or speculation, so it is quite contradictory to now say that science will prove one religion is correct. Also, you seem to accept The Big Bang, but appear confused on the nature of evolution (the theory of how life has developed on Earth, not the creation of the Universe). Lastly it is far from certain humans will ever make contact with another intelligent civilization owing, at the very least, to the vast distances to neighbouring stars. Even if we do, unfortunately that would only count as opinion, not proof. Proof is evidence-based, not simply what someone tells you, alien or not. Best wishes.

Every now and then some unknown scientist discovers that something we have believed to be true for a long time is simply wrong. The limits of velocity are an excellent example. Soon it will be proven that the speed of light is not a barrier or limit at all, as it is now believed to be. We already know that light can be bent, and it can even be slowed down, so it is only natural that if we can manipulate light that we can also make it faster. That would make our current “yard stick” for measuring the universe totally unreliable, and completely change our view of our universe.

SDR — excellent, concise explanation. No, I’m not an astronomer or physicist, but in high school I won a National Science Foundation scholarship for a university summer program in physics. I did miserably — except, for reasons beyond me and my professors, Einstein’s theories. Their *math* gave me fits — but not the underlying concepts. And you explanation seems to be exactly right.
Someone mentioned the Earth being 40 billion years old; drop the zero, and you’re in the ballpark. (About 3.7 billion years old, as I recall off the top of my head, is the most accurate current estimate.)

There is one thing we can all agree upon, there are things in this universe that we will likely never understand.