The Observable Universe

[Eliahad]

So I'm typing through my fingers here, but I've been reading about this controversy about looking at "really young galaxies" at the edge of the Observable universe (Thanks, James Webb!) that aren't as young as we expected.

The thing that keeps creeping up in my mind is the problem with the idea that our Big Bang is the only one. All of our astrophysical science is wrapped up in this idea. We can calculate the amount of stuff in the entire universe. Okay, cool, but really what we're saying is we can calculate all of the stuff in our Observable Universe, yeah?

Luke, we knew that our small slice of geography was the only one because it's all we could observe. Until people came from outside that space.

And so our planet was the center of the universe until we discovered everything didn't rotate around us.

So our sun was the center of the universe, clearly, until....

I'm wondering if we're approaching that moment with the big bang? That there are things beyond the observable universe, but now we know to keep looking for them.

I know that there are problems with my thinking, and that it would take research to know more about why. But I'm also curious how many of those young galaxies might have a blue shift... Because they were shot out of some other big bang and our headed our way?

Ah well. I'll keep reading

[Mike]

If I understand things correctly (and I may not)...

1) There seems to be a sense that a big bang is not a full description of how the universe began. It is a simple, easy to digest concept, but is, at a minimum, incomplete.

2) in all of the observable universe, the fabric of space is expanding. Obviously there are local exceptions where objects are close enough to be caught by one another's gravity, but in general, space is expanding everywhere that we can see AND is expanding at a uniform rate. Nothing says this has to hold true for the universe beyond our observable limit, but there is also not yet anything anomalous in that observed expansion to indicate that things ARE different beyond what we can see.