Recent pictures of the early universe

[Bazile]

I think I understand this

Once upon a ' time ' there was nothing , then there was the big bang and the universe was created .
Some time later the first stars were formed and we are now seeing the light from those early stars - yes ?

At a time some billion of years after the event the earth was formed and here we are today looking at the light from those early stars and hence the early universe - yes ?

If the light from these early stars have been travelling for billions of years , only now just reaching us - does it mean that the earth is at a location in the universe these billion of light years in distance from the position of where those early stars are ( were , given that we dont know if they are still in existence ) ?

Or , are you going to confuse me even further ?

[mibn2cweus]

When the first stars coalesced and ignited the observable universe had already attained much of its current size. The pictures of the early universe are of the microwave background radiation produced by the Big Bang in the first second of time.

Big-Bang to first stars

[mibn2cweus]

The first stars formed all around us. It is by virtue of the fixed velocity of light that light from the earliest stars that are currently visible to us are that same distance from us. The first stars were very large, "burned" hard and fast and lived relatively short lives. The light from those early stars that were much closer to us has long since passed us by.

another look at what we see

[jake-the-peg]

That's roughly the case when we're talking about objects thousands or even millions of light years away.

With very distant objects there's another factor we're then looking back to the very early universe and the expansion of the universe (space and time that is , not just what's in it) has carried us all further apart too.

The usual analogie is currants in a loaf in an oven getting further apart as the dough expands.

The other thing is you do have to be careful about using words like position. The universe has no central pole that you measure things from, everything is moving at different rates and directions and you have to be careful to say position relative to something (like the center of our galaxy for example) to make sense.

We're not even sure that the universe is "open" it could be "closed" which would mean that if you could shoot off in one direction fast enough and long enough you'd come back to where you started (remembering of course what I said earler about positions :c) )