SUMMARY: When you look at the sky, it's like looking through a time machine. The further you look, the longer the light took to reach our eyes. The most powerful telescopes on Earth can see out to a distance of 13 billion light-years away; but any more distant, and the first stars hadn't ignited yet to illuminate the sky - a time called the "Dark Era". The afterglow of the Big Bang, the cosmic background radiation, is present across the entire night sky, and astronomers have figured out how to spot the shadows cast by intervening particles to begin understanding the distribution of matter in the Dark Era.

What do you think about this story? Post your comments below.

I had a general question... there have been so many reports / studies / experiments to track the expansion of the Cosmos back to the time of the big bang. But I've been wondering, has anyone yet identified the "location" of the big bang? Where exactly did the Big Bang start / originate from in some sort of geo-special (or spherical) coordinate system? I'm not a Physicist, but I would think that if we can come up with experiments to see back to the first couple of seconds, we should be able to come up with a guess of "where" it all started.

Perhaps this has already been accomplished, if so, please enlighten me.

Bannon

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"Leading to Innovation through Diversity, Teamwork, and Understanding"

Bannon,

First of all, as the article discusses, the universe was opaque during the first 300,000+ years due to the fact that the entire universe was too hot for electrons and protons to combine into nuetral atoms and allow photons to move basically unhindered through space. Then it was a while before any of the nuetral atoms clumped together into stars and galaxies that we can actually see. So the point is that right now it is believed impossible to actual see the Bang Bang or anytime for the 300,000 years after when the universe stopped being opaque.

Also, you appear to be falling into the old trap of assuming that the Big Bang happened somewhere. This, unfortunately is like asking what happened before the Big Bang. You see, the Big Bang is believed to have created not only the matter and energy refered to in the article and above paragraph, but also space and time itself were created at the moment of the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the universe, it did not happen within it.

Now, there are new stirng theory based ideas that there was a larger (infinite) space in which the Big Bang, or some other release of energy occurred, and that this greater bulk space existed for an infinite amount of time before our universe burst into existence, but this is a moot point as we are still withing the Big Bang universe, can never see anything beyond it, and cannot measure whether any time existed before it. You can therefore safely say that everywhere is the center of the universe since the Big Bang created everywhere together at the same initial instant of time.

John, what I think Bannon is asking is where in space the Big Bang originated FROM. In other words, when the Big Bang was nothing more than a singularity, where in the space we know was this singularity located (before it inflated)?

It's simple. God created the Big Bang. At the end of the universe is God sitting on his throne looking at the world like we would look at a fish tank or reptile tank....hmmm, interesting :huh:
We're just in some sort of huge fish tank. We are part of the universe.
Just a theory like every other scientist has a theory. :P

[b]Every time whenever I read another story about looking way back 12 billion years at galaxies that lit the very young Cosmos, I search, in vain, for any mention of far away galaxies that could be seen 180 degrees in opposition, on a starry night 6 months forward or back (so to minimize light-pollution from my favorite star in this part of Our Galaxy).

There are no galaxies near 180 degrees opposition, right? Else, they would have told us, they would have written about it, right? How few and sparse they are, and they're only 9 billion light-years, or 6 billion light-years, really, just not worth mentioning, compared with the exceeding resplendant coruscation of the crowded deep in the meritorious primary side of the Universe.

But consider for a moment, if there could be discovered a 6 billion light-year galaxy at opposition to the 12 now in the news, does the best estimate of total age of our universe rise from 12 to 18 billion years? Dear astrophysicist, please reply or correct or critique.

Happy Trails across the void, orbyttor

At the moment of the big bang, the universe was zero size. Therefore the big bang originated from everywhere. You can't give a set of coordinates where it was because it was the source of the entire universe.

And a similar viewpoint answers 7orbyttor's questions about galaxies in opposition - the universe is expanding in the fourth dimension (not just in three dimensions) so there is no concept of backwards and forwards vs. the big bang. Whichever way you look, that's the way the universe is expanding. So everything out there is older than us.

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Spike
:)

How can you be certain that If that's true, and everything is relative, wouldn't observers in Andromeda reason that the Milky Way is older, and Vice Versa for us? Therefore you cannot say that our galaxy is the youngest of all...Andromedans would consider the opposite.

Thanks John, and everyone else. Damn my three dimensional perception... I had forgotten about time. I also didn't know that some of the current theories also believe the Big Bang created not just matter and energy... but also space and time. That puts a whole new "dimension(s)" on the question (pun intended). Perhaps some of our new great observatories can answer some of these questions (or at least generate some new theories).

Thanks,

Bannon

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"Leading to Innovation through Diversity, Teamwork, and Understanding"

OK:

Matter and Energy
Space and Time
Are there any more X and Y combinations?

When I said "everything out there is older than us", I meant because of the delays in light travelling to us. So someone in the Andromeda galaxy would see an old version of the Milky Way in, and we see an old version of the Andromeda galaxy. So the further you look, the older the image because of the time the light takes to reach us.

Interesting questions about the combinations. I've often wondered why things in physics always seem to show symmetry. Like electrons/positrons or protons/neutrons. And the overall picture of fundamental particles is full of symmetry and regularity.

Why do things fit into neat patterns? Is the universe fundamentally mathematical? There seems an inherent beauty and simplicity when correct theories are presented, whereas wrong theories often seem contrived and complicated. For example, the original explanations of planetary motion were complicated when the earth was seen as the centre of the solar system but as soon as we placed the sun at the centre, the image of concentric orbits was simple and clear.

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Spike
:)

No, the age does not need recalculation. Another quirky thing arises when we try to guess where the galaxy that we see now at 12 billion light years, where it was then, is now and can they now see in the direction opposite to us a galaxy other than ours 12 billion light years away, etc. And whether there are galaxies far enough away that cosmological expansion is carrying them away from us at greater than light speed or allowing them to be far enough away that their light has not had time to reach us even though our curent relative separation velocity is less than that of light.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

The dark age it would suck if they were in the dark age where there was no light.

It does not matter what direction you look. Light from the early universe comes from every direction. Now this may be hard to understand and I dont think that Einsteins "folded space" description makes it any easier.
This is what happens:
When light passes high gravitation is bends and starts traveling in a slightly different direction. "Old" light has passed areas with high gravity so many times that the direction you see the light (or any electromagnetic radiation) is no longer the real direction it came from. Try to percive a room built entierly of mirrors, the light in that room bounces so manny time its impossible to track where it originated, thats how we see the universe.

So, yes there is a fixed point in space where it all came from but finding it is probably impossible unless you can find and meassure som kind of radiation that iis unaffected of anything else.

/Martin

Hmm. I think the rarity and well observed affect of gravitational lensing takes some of the wind out of that theory. There is no way for any substantial fraction of the photons from early stars or quasars to have made even one single 180 degree turn in their lives. You might convince me that there is some rare alignment that shifted an apparent source by as much as one degree.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Hmm. I think the rarity and well observed affect of gravitational lensing takes some of the wind out of that theory. There is no way for any substantial fraction of the photons from early stars or quasars to have made even one single 180 degree turn in their lives. You might convince me that there is some rare alignment that shifted an apparent source by as much as one degree. [/b][/quote]
>Hmm. I think the rarity and well observed affect of gravitational lensing takes some of >the wind out of that theory. There is no way for any substantial fraction of the photons >from early stars or quasars to have made even one single 180 degree turn in their >lives. You might convince me that there is some rare alignment that shifted an >apparent source by as much as one degree
>
So, then tell me what direction I should look to see the oldest galaxies ?
North of the equator, south ?
Our current side of the milkyway or the other side ?

You simply cannot point out a specific direction where the birth of the universe took place and another where its all black.

"For example, the cosmos might be tiled with some repeating shape, around which light rays might wrap themselves over and over ("wrap" in the sense that, as in video games, something might disappear off the left side of the screen and reappear on the right side)." (Snipped from Physics news 685)

Possibly this description is more accurate but it boils down to the same point, something makes the light not move strait.