Could a strong enough telescope see the beginning of time?
anonymous asked:
I was looking at space images today, some were of stars and galaxies billions of light years away. My understanding of the subject is limited, but I know that space time is different and the stars we see now are images from the past … so the telescopes are now sending images of things supposedly from a billion years after the big bang…. so, would it be theoretically possible for us to see the beginning of time if we had a telescope powerful enough? Wow, what a weird concept, like the past is still alive today. But if it works on some degree, how far back can we go?
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I was looking at space images today, some were of stars and galaxies billions of light years away. My understanding of the subject is limited, but I know that space time is different and the stars we see now are images from the past … so the telescopes are now sending images of things supposedly from a billion years after the big bang…. so, would it be theoretically possible for us to see the beginning of time if we had a telescope powerful enough? Wow, what a weird concept, like the past is still alive today. But if it works on some degree, how far back can we go?
August 26th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
At some point — probably in the not to distant future– we will reach the time BEFORE the first stars ignited– a “wall” so to speak before which everything was dark.
–a-h.html
August 29th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Nope.
The best we can do, in theory, is look back to 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Before that the whole universe was opaque because the Universe was too hot. In that state there were no atoms and everything existed as a plasma which very strongly absorbs EM radiation of all frequencies.
Think of it like clouds. On a cloudy day you can see light and anything under the clouds but you cannot see past the clouds.
This is called the Cosmic Microwave Background Surface of Last Scattering (see link below).
August 31st, 2009 at 2:14 pm
doubt it…since you would be wanting to see the singularity as it first emerged into this universe (which was brand new at that time).
Impossible. All you can see is things which have occurred after the fact.
Not saying you can’t see the beginning of time….but you can’t do it here, in our universe. You might be able to see it if you created your own universe from a singularity…..just plug you power cord into the quantum field
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:02 am
we can’t see it, but we can hear it: teh comic microwave background radiation. they make maps of it with satellites.
scintists listen to it with special radios and play it at parties. it’s really cool.
September 5th, 2009 at 2:50 am
No. since the inflation theory states that the universe expanded faster than the speed of light at one point, we would need to be able to see faster than the speed of light in order to witness the big bang.