I know that the universe is 13 billion years old and the fastest anything could be is the speed of light so if the universe is expanding as fast as it could be wouldn’t the universe be 13 billion light years big? But I’ve searched and it’s 93 billion light years big, so is the universe expanding faster than the speed of light?
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The fastest anything can move THROUGH space is the speed of light. There is no such limitation on the expansion of space itself. In fact, it is thought that during an incredibly brief inflationary period about 13.8 billion years ago, the entire universe expanded at speeds far in excess of the speed of light as new space was in effect created between every bit of existing space. The same is happening today in a sense for objects very distant from other objects – they are moving away from each other at faster-than-light speeds as new space is constantly created between them. And the more space there is between them, the more space is being created, and the faster they are moving away from each other. It’s important to understand that locally (i.e., in the region where each of these objects is located), the objects are moving through that local region of space at speeds well below light speed.
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