Looking Into Deep Space & Back In Time. How does it work?

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Something about viewing the Universe has been bugging me for years. Something that seems to be accepted knowledge that baffles me and I've finally decided to ask for an answer to my pretty basic question.

Let me try to explain what I mean

We hear time and time again that more powerful telescopes are able to look deeper into space and that by doing so, they are able to see back to the origins of the universe. In other words, back in time.

The light coming from the more distant constellations has travelled for billions of years to reach us. That we are now able to see light which was formed just after the Big Bang.

Now, my Janet & John knowledge of the Big Bang is that everything started from a 'singularity'. So - please bear with me without tittering - everything was really close to everything else as the Universe was formed.

Now, here's where I get totally confused. Why would the light from the furthest constellations take billions of years to reach us when all of those billions of years ago, we were sort of next to each other rather than far apart? Surely, we should have 'seen' this light ages ago, when we were close to the distant galaxies.

Does my question make sense?

If not, lock this thread now!

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Simpo Two said:

Because the suns etc didn't start shining right away? The clouds of stuff had to condense first.

Riiiigggghhhhhtttt........I still don't get it.

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Yes Eric.

I understand the idea that it is as if we're on the surface of an expanding balloon which is inflating so that everything is moving away from everything els.

But, if the universe is, say, 20 billion years old and astronomers have detected light from galaxies so far away that it's taken 19 billion years to reach us, then shirley, the bloody thing was only one billion light years away when the light was emitted?

God, I wish I was clever.

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APanda said:

This thread is, I think, the same question asked a few months ago.

http://pistonheads.com/xforums/topic.asp?h=0&f...

Yeah. But, now that thread is much further away.

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Blimey. I think that I understand that.

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AJI said:

But the thing I still can't get my head around is that when they say with more and more powerful telescopes they can see further and further back in time and can see closer and closer to the big bang origin.....does this mean with a powerful enough telescope yet to be developed that they could in theory see back to the singularity itself (or read that to be the very first EM wave transmission after the big bang) ???

That's part of my issue with all of this.

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Oh no. I'm lost again.

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Gene Vincent said:

Blib said:

Oh no. I'm lost again.

30 bn light years away but only 13.3 or 13.4 bn (light) years ago.

The difference is due to the period of inflation.

I do get that bit. It's just the 'moving away from us at faster than the speed of light' bit that jars on my addled brains. I shall read through it once more in the morning.

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As a PHer, I should probably say "MTFU" or similar, at this juncture. But, you'd probably hunt me down and kill me.

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Ray Luxury-Yacht said:

Blib said:

As a PHer, I should probably say "MTFU" or similar, at this juncture. But, you'd probably hunt me down and kill me.

I'm a lover, not a fighter! Life's hard enough as it is without creating more trouble, lol!