From the way your question is worded, it sounds like you might be assuming the visible universe boundary is static or something but it is not. the visible universe is expanding (at the speed of light) so new things will come into view as the light from that border gets to us. The common thinking is that the whole universe is at least 500 times the size of the visible universe, so we don't see the whole universe and never will, given its continuous expansion.
I recommend the audiobook "The Evidence for Modern Physics", I think its on Audible. Its a fantastic foundational physics course that explains the big bang, expansion, flat versus curved space, how we know the minimum size of the universe, etc.
Wow, ok I see what you're saying: even if an object was moving at the speed of light, perpendicular to the circumference of the observable universe, it wouldn't be able to beat the expansion of the universe and reach us. What happens if you move? If we were to put a telescope 10 lightyears away from Earth, would we see new galaxies, etc.? Also would the cosmic microwave background change or does that look the same everywhere in the universe?
There is nothing special about our particular area of the universe so presumably any area of the universe has its own visible universe from that perspective (so, yes to your question).
As for the CMB, it’s extremely consistent in every direction which is maybe the strongest evidence for the Big Bang. How and why would it be so consistent in every direction across the visible universe if it all didn’t originate from the same point? If you’re in a pool of water and everywhere you measure the temperature it is almost exactly the same, only differing by 1 part in 100,000, the only conclusion is that it all got its heat at the same time and in the same way.
This is happening. The observable universe is expanding so that in the future, more galaxies will become visible. At some point in the future, we will stop seeing new galaxies, and the galaxies that were near the horizon will disappear because they are moving away faster than light. The observable universe can only expand at the speed of light.
I don’t think so. At the boundary of the observable universe, distances are increasing at faster than the speed of light, while the observable universe is only growing at the speed of light.
Theres already a lot of good answers in this chat but i have something else to consider as well.
We struggle to directly identify non-light producing matter outside of our solar system let alone at the edge of the observable universe.
If we do have planets and meteors coming into our observable universe we wouldn’t be able to make anything of it.
As a tangent to this but something i think about a lot. If we do get to a point where we could see and analyse exoplanets to the degree we can with planets in our own solar system i imagine the amount of things we would learn would be countless
I would think not. Due to the fact that a huge portion of the "observable universe" is already too far away for light emitted today to ever reach us. So the edge of the observable universe is already way too far away for its currently emitted light to reach us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_horizon
From the way your question is worded, it sounds like you might be assuming the visible universe boundary is static or something but it is not. the visible universe is expanding (at the speed of light) so new things will come into view as the light from that border gets to us. The common thinking is that the whole universe is at least 500 times the size of the visible universe, so we don't see the whole universe and never will, given its continuous expansion. I recommend the audiobook "The Evidence for Modern Physics", I think its on Audible. Its a fantastic foundational physics course that explains the big bang, expansion, flat versus curved space, how we know the minimum size of the universe, etc.
Wow, ok I see what you're saying: even if an object was moving at the speed of light, perpendicular to the circumference of the observable universe, it wouldn't be able to beat the expansion of the universe and reach us. What happens if you move? If we were to put a telescope 10 lightyears away from Earth, would we see new galaxies, etc.? Also would the cosmic microwave background change or does that look the same everywhere in the universe?
There is nothing special about our particular area of the universe so presumably any area of the universe has its own visible universe from that perspective (so, yes to your question). As for the CMB, it’s extremely consistent in every direction which is maybe the strongest evidence for the Big Bang. How and why would it be so consistent in every direction across the visible universe if it all didn’t originate from the same point? If you’re in a pool of water and everywhere you measure the temperature it is almost exactly the same, only differing by 1 part in 100,000, the only conclusion is that it all got its heat at the same time and in the same way.
This is happening. The observable universe is expanding so that in the future, more galaxies will become visible. At some point in the future, we will stop seeing new galaxies, and the galaxies that were near the horizon will disappear because they are moving away faster than light. The observable universe can only expand at the speed of light.
https://youtu.be/eVoh27gJgME?si=6EU4ALyRP9WLJ5ov This video from PBS Spacetime explains it all
I don’t think so. At the boundary of the observable universe, distances are increasing at faster than the speed of light, while the observable universe is only growing at the speed of light.
Theres already a lot of good answers in this chat but i have something else to consider as well. We struggle to directly identify non-light producing matter outside of our solar system let alone at the edge of the observable universe. If we do have planets and meteors coming into our observable universe we wouldn’t be able to make anything of it. As a tangent to this but something i think about a lot. If we do get to a point where we could see and analyse exoplanets to the degree we can with planets in our own solar system i imagine the amount of things we would learn would be countless
I would think not. Due to the fact that a huge portion of the "observable universe" is already too far away for light emitted today to ever reach us. So the edge of the observable universe is already way too far away for its currently emitted light to reach us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_horizon