Q&A: Cosmology
Q:
I read that "the light from some of the quasars Chandra will
observe has been traveling through space for over 14 billion
years." Is there something here that will relay us information
from beyond at a rate faster than the speed of light? If the
universe is expanding, we will have trouble catching up to what
has a 14 billion year head start at those speeds?
A:
Alas, we will never catch up. Sounds like work, doesn't it?
Information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of
light, so we must resign ourselves to being out of date! The
good news is that we can see into our past. The light from
distant galaxies tells us what they were like long ago, when the
universe was young, and everything was much closer
together.
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