The big bang theory?

[spurius]

If the big bang really happened, what would the hubble space scope see if it tried a "deep field" view in the exact opposite direction? The furthest object detected is about 13.7 billion light years away which isnt much later than the big bang itself. Im led to believe this is relatively near where the universe started from our line of sight. So how far could we see in the opposite direction? If it turns out to be possible to see objects 13 billion light years away in the direction opposite of the hubble deep field then surely the big bang theory is wrong. It happened from a single location didnt it? Its extremely remote that we are still in the location where the bb happened.

What im trying to say is if the universe is 14 billion years old and we are 13.7 billion light years away from the point of detonation, then should we only be able to see objects about 300 million light years in the opposite direction? Maybe less than that if you take into account they are moving away much faster than us.

[JulianO]

The universe is much bigger than 13.7 billion light years - we can see to about 45 billion light years or so effectively because of the expansion, and due to inflation the universe is probably much bigger - maybe even infinite. Scientists argue about exactly how big it is.

However we are in no special place - so we can see that far back in any direction.

[Stephen]

The big bang theory postulates it happened every where and everything, everything expands away from everything else as the same (accelerating) rate.

There is no centre, nor point of detonation

As stated above, the Universe is bigger than we can "see" - so we're limited by the observable Universe

[ollypenrice]

Yup, unlike any other physical object the Universe of the BB has neither centre nor edge. No point in it is any different from any other. Like the surface (note the surface only) of a sphere there is no reason to find any one point any different from any other. The surface of a sphere is unbounded. It can expand but it neither begins anywhere nor ends anywhere.

In an expanding universe a galaxy which sent out light 13 billion years ago is no longer 13 billion LY away. It and we have been driven further apart by the expansion during the flight of the light, hence the 45 billion LY rough distance now.

Olly

[Knight of Clear Skies]

The universe is much bigger than 13.7 billion light years - we can see to about 45 billion light years or so effectively because of the expansion, and due to inflation the universe is probably much bigger - maybe even infinite. Scientists argue about exactly how big it is.

However we are in no special place - so we can see that far back in any direction.

This

does a good job of explaining this. We are inside the Big Bang, which happened everywhere. The Big Bang didn't explode into existing space, space itself expanded. It's all very confusing.

The other thing to bear in mind is, there is an absolute limit on how far back it's possible to look, and we'll never be able to see the Big Bang itself. The Cosmic Background Radiation is often called the echo of the Big Bang, but it's not the light of the Big Bang itself. The early universe was opaque to light, as it was very hot and dense. As it expanded, it cooled, until eventually it became possible for neutral hydrogen to form. This is thought to have happened 378,000 years after the Big Bang itself.

[nameunknown]

Its extremely remote that we are still in the location where the bb happened.

Nope - its an absolute certainty. If you want, you can put one of those round blue plaques on your wall saying "13.7 billion years ago, the Big Bang happened here" (but again, so could anyone else - mmmmm... perhaps there;s money to be made with that idea) - yes, anyone who thinks they are the center of everything isn't wrong. It's a bit like always knowing you are directly above the center of the earth ... doesn't matter if the earth gets bigger, smaller or you run about. Of course what we don't know is if the BB happened in one tiny place (that one place is now the entire universe, so we are still there as long as we are in the universe) or happened over a region which could be considered to have infinite size (a "when branes collide" model) - and then, despite being infinite still underwent inflation and got a lot more infinite. That's cosmology - a state of mind invented by people who didn't need/want/have access to mind-altering substances...

P

[nameunknown]

However we are in no special place -

Oddly, perhaps we are (if that is "place" in space-time). If dark-energy driven expansion continues then at some point in deep future time extra-galactic astronomy might get rather dull, as everything will be moving away effectively "faster than light" and there will not be much to see. Assuming there is a lot more of the future than the past, we are in a "lucky" position of being here in the very early days of the universe when we have stuff other than boring red-dwarfs and a worn-out galaxiy that has merged with Andromeda. Taking the overall lifetime of the universe into consideration, we might not be in a special place, but we are in a special time.

But then again, I suppose someone has to be .. but the chance its me? - zillions to one against, guess thats my chances of winning LOTTO used up then...

P

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Assuming there is a lot more of the future than the past, we are in a "lucky" position of being here in the very early days of the universe when we have stuff other than boring red-dwarfs and a worn-out galaxiy that has merged with Andromeda. Taking the overall lifetime of the universe into consideration, we might not be in a special place, but we are in a special time.

Ah, but if you'd been around a few billion years ago, you'd have been able to pop out to the garden and image a quasar.

I read somewhere the other day that the universe is thought to be - in a sense - middle aged, and that over 90% of the stars that will ever form have already formed. Certainly, many of those spectacular galaxies will become less so with time, barring the odd merger and period of star-burst activity.

[Treeden]

If you want, you can put one of those round blue plaques on your wall saying "13.7 billion years ago, the Big Bang happened here"

Ha ha, very true, but how long would it be before you got fed-up of explaining it to the neighbours?

Where's my drill.......

[Matt Scunthorpe]

I have always thought that the hardest part of the BB theory is getting your head around that it all happened in the same place, at the same time.

[J_M_Franklin]

One of the problems people have with the Big Bang idea is that people think of explosions as a radial event when in reality they are not. The shape of some supernova remnants demonstrates this, even where there is no companion.

The Big Bang was an explosion at a level that would have been truly sub-atomic and would have expanded in a "butterfly" pattern, but 3 dimensionally. calculations imply that within a few millionths of a second the fledgling Universe would have attained a size similar to the solar system, then for reasons that are not understood it expanded exponentially within a few thousandths of a second. By the time the universe was one second old it was already half the current size, and it has been expanding ever since, research indicates at an ever increasing rate.

It is not correct to state the Big Bang happened everywhere at the same time, because the space-time we exist in was created by the Big Bang and was not part of it according to current models..

However it is all speculation and i personally have serious doubts about it's validity.