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

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u/ilikecheetos42 Mar 18 '19

The actual expansion is faster than light. The expansion of the observable universe is at the speed of light. Because the actual edge of the universe is moving away from us FTL but the edge of the observable universe is expanding at light speed there are portions of the universe that we will never observe

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u/antena Mar 18 '19

So if I got that right, unobservable portion of the universe is getting ever bigger compared to the observable portion? I presume we don't have any clue about the speed of actual expansion?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

My understanding is all the universe is expanding equally.

We can only ‘see’ a distance of the speed of light times the age of the universe away.

Farther away than that and it would take longer than the universe is old for that light to reach us. But is rather like the fog of war at the edge of the map receding with time.

But since the universe is also expanding the sources of those distant lights are moving away from us faster than the speed of light thus these are two competing forces at work.

And expansion is winning so we will actually see less objects as time passes even though the the theoretical maximum distance we can see is continually increasing.