eli5: How can stuff be further from the center of the universe than physics allows?

554 viewsOtherPlanetary Science

Ok so the diameter of the observable universe is 93 billion light years. That means the distance from the center where the big bang occured to the outer edges of our (observable) universe is roughly 46,5 billion lightyears.

The fastest speed in the universe is the speed of light and the universe is 13,7 billion years old.

Doesn’t that mean that the farthest anything can be from the centre of the universe is 13,7 billion lightyears?

In: Planetary Science

10 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The center of the observable universe is Earth, or wherever your observer is located. The definition of the “observable universe” is a section of the entire universe that is possible to be observed due to physical limitations (mostly speed of light vs the age of the universe vs expansion rate) and it’s always going to be a sphere (of varying size) with the observer in the absolute center.

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