BBC Focus Magazine

[scott fairbrass]

this may sound stupid but is it possible that the univers is older than 13.7 billion years old? I was watching wonders of the universe and prof brian cox showed a picture the hubble telescope had taken over a 11 day period of the furthest galaxies in ouir universe. He said the light had been stretched so much because of the time taken to travel the distance to the telescope that the galaxies were red. Now is it possible that there are many more galaxies many light years further than what we can view but cant see them because ther light as been stretched so much it is now invisable?

[M Paul Lloyd]

I think it is altogether possible Scott, just because our 'horizon' is limited to a certain distance does not mean that nothing exists beyond that point.
Although having said that modern telescopes can see quite a long way into the far infrared part of the spectrum so it would have to be a heck of a lot of stretching to make something completely invisible to our current instruments.
Of course the argument goes that the fact that we cannot see further back than, I think its now a shade over 14 billion light years then that defines the age, and size, of the universe because the light from anything older would already have reached us but that doesn't mean to say that ever more distant objects will not be found as technology advances.

I am quietly confident that our view of the universe will extend our visible horizon further and further out as each year passes, always supposing our view is not obscured by something unforeseen of course.
This might be of interest?
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect ... y/age.html

[Shadowwolf]

Now is it possible that there are many more galaxies many light years further than what we can view but cant see them because ther light as been stretched so much it is now invisable?

Possible but I think - though I am by no means certain of this - that there are less of the dimmer, red shifted galaxies visible because the verse was in such an early age and thus less galaxies had formed.

[scott fairbrass]

another reason i thought the universe could be older than what we think is becuse which ever direction we look in the universe the distant galaxies never get older than 13.7 billion years so either we cant detect light at any further distance or we are in the centre of the universe?

[M Paul Lloyd]

We are not at the centre of the universe, I'm pretty certain of that one, but we are at the centre of what we can see, just like your own visible two dimensional hozizon on the Earth's surface so too we have a three diemsional limit to how far we can see across the universe.

I have a real problem accepting that the universe is expanding and especially at an accelerating rate but am forced to accept it as the best working theory based upon observational evidence, the problem is that no matter how far beyond our horizon or in which direction the universe may exist it must, unless we are missing something significant, all have come into existence at about the same time.