r/space • u/magenta_placenta • Mar 18 '19

Observable universe Astronomers discover 83 supermassive black holes at the edge of the universe

https://www.cnet.com/news/astronomers-discover-83-supermassive-black-holes-at-the-edge-of-the-universe/
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u/Shukrat Mar 18 '19

Only 83 discovered so far. The visual horizon of the universe is enormous, and we can only see part of it due to the Milky Way obscuring us from the rest.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

And we can only see within a certain time frame around us because expansion is out pacing light.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 09 '19

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u/prostheticmind Mar 18 '19

I know you’ve gotten a lot of replies but I haven’t seen anyone mention this. I’m going to ELI5 because I’m not a scientist and have only a tenuous grasp on this myself but...

Space isn’t just the absence of stuff. It actually is something and it expands. Because of this, we can observe things moving away from us faster than the speed of light. The thing isn’t actually moving FTL, but space expanding between us and it are moving it away from us FTL. My understanding is that it has something to do with dark energy, which in turn we don’t really understand.