Is light really billions of years old when we look deep into space?

Question

For example. A star is 8B light years away, we’re told that that the light has taken 8B years to get to us.

BUT the universe is constantly expanding therefor was the star not much much closer to us therefor making it’s light younger?

In: 10

Answer 1

We can calculate the expansion of the universe, so we can say how far away something was when it released the light, as well as how far away it is now, and yes, both of those can be billions of light years.

The universe isn’t expanding *that* fast too, so it doesn’t actually change most distances measured.