Will we be able to see Big Bang in the future?

[Radojica]

I am wondering something. If the Universe is old around 14 billion of years and we are able to see the objects (quasars) almost at the edge of the Universe, some 13 billion light years away, is it possible that with some stronger telescope we will be able to see the very Big Bang itself like some bright light or something knowing that astronomy is something like time traveling, if it is true that the Universe started that way and if it is true that the Universe is old that much?

Ok, this might sound so stupid, I know, but that is something which is falling on my mind for a quite a long time

[George Jones]

We we can see (using electromagnetic radiation) only as far back as 380000 years after the Big Bang, which is when the cosmic microwave background (cmb) was emitted. Earlier than this, the universe is "foggy" for electromagnetic radiation. There has been recent speculation that gravitational waves or neutrinos could be used to "see" times earlier than this.

[Zapp]

As I understand it the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, so no we won't be able to

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[johninderby]

The latest theories suggest that there was no light at all for the first few hundred thousand years after the big bang, so there would be nothing to see. I admit it seems unnatural that there wouldn't be some kind of big flash of light to start things off but who knows. There will probably be a new theory coming along next week anyway.

John

[George Jones]

The latest theories suggest that there was no light at all for the first few hundred thousand years after the big bang, so there would be nothing to see.

There is "light" (electromagnetic radiation) in this period, but, in this period, photons are scattered in random directions again and again and again off free particles that have electrical charge (like electrons), resulting in an impenetrable haze or fog. Only after these particles combined to form atoms, about 380000 years after the Big bang, are photons free to stream directly form then to us now, so that we can see what "then" was like.

[acey]

George has said it - the universe was initially opaque because the plasma was too hot and dense for photons to make much headway through it. When it got cool and thin enough it became possible for photons to travel effectively forever (or at any rate for a very long time) without bumping into anything. The microwave background that we now observe consists of photons emitted at that time. If it were possible to see the Big Bang visually then we'd be seeing it already - but it isn't, and never will be.

[Nexus 6]

Excellent question

The answers given sum it up.

Great site for such topics

Clear skies

Alan

[Moonshane]

I'm sure that I read once, possibly in Bill Bryson's A Short History of Everything, that if you switch on the TV and it's not tuned in (giving the fuzzy buzzing flies image) then approximately 2% of what you see/hear is static from the big bang. in fact I just found this

WikiAnswers - What is and when did the 'Big Bang' occur

[Doc]

But then as there is no centre of the universe and the big bang (expansion) happened everywhere at once where would you actually look.

[acey]

You would look in any direction - that's where we see the microwave background coming from.

[ollypenrice]

But what you see on the telly, or part of it, is just the 'last scattering surface', the moment of recombination that George was talking about when the electrons combine and the fog clears. It is not something before this. The cosmic microwave background was predicted from theory by Alpher and Herman a generation before it was observed by Penzias and Wilson, who were trying to get rid of it from their horn antenna before they knew what it was. Then they liked it a lot and won the Nobel prize!!

Olly

PS Have a care when looking at an early part of the thread. If an object has a light travel time of x million LY it is a lot more than x million LY away.

[Radojica]

How about gravitational waves? I heard those can be used to see farther (closer to Big Bang)

PS Have a care when looking at an early part of the thread. If an object has a light travel time of x million LY it is a lot more than x million LY away.

What do you mean by this?

[ollypenrice]

What do you mean by this?

Hi,

If an object sent out its light 10 million LY ago in a non-expanding universe then it would be 10 million LY away. But in an expanding universe the expansion has (so to speak) been pushing the object away from us during the light travel time so it is not where it was when it sent out the light. It is now further way.

Olly