I have been googling Cosmic Background Radiation, but am still confused as to the location of its source. Is it just very old light finally arriving from very distant sources? Or is earth also surrounded by nearby CBR sources that in the fullness of time will arrive at very distant galaxies?
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To understand, you need to know that back, long long ago, the universe was opaque. Light could not go anywhere without being absorbed into the dense cloud of plasma that was everywhere.
But, there came a point in time where the universe had expanded enough that it stopped being opaque. So when that happened, the light that had been getting absorbed could now just go. This light is the cosmic background radiation. The actual acronym is the “CMB” for cosmic microwave background.
It happened everywhere, there were no specific CMB sources, as everything was a source. We are constantly being bombarded by the CMB radiation coming from places that are farther and farther away.
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