Anatta
2 min readJan 19, 2021

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If I understand this properly, and I may not, there is a distance from our vantage point beyond which we will never observe anything, about 18 billion light years as I recall from a previous post.

If you look a the Hubble deep field photos, there are galaxies that are the oldest and most distant objects that emit light we have ever seen. Since we are about 13.7 billion years after the big bang, we have another 4.3 billion years where light emitted from even more distant galaxies will reach us. After that, we will see nothing. Light from even more distant galaxies will never reach us because the point in space relative to us is moving away faster than the speed of light due to the expansion of space itself.

The visible universe would be like a light painting frozen in spacetime. The universe within the observable universe will still be a dynamic place, but we would be forever unable to see beyond the visible edge due to the expansion of space. Those last ghostly images of the earliest galaxies will be frozen in time and space, like baby pictures on a very distant wall.

In fact, if the rate of expansion continues to accelerate, some of the light 18 billion light years distant at the edge of the visible universe will actually disappear. Objects that were visible 18 billion years after the big bang may not be visible 20 billion years after because the point in space where the light originated moved away faster than light could travel. One by one, the most distant galaxies would literally wink out leaving no evidence they were there at all.

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Anatta
Anatta

Written by Anatta

Buddhist practitioner and writer. My autistic son is the focus of my spiritual practice. He inspires me with his love and companionship.

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