Stuff like this keeps me awake at night

[Munkay]

Man I love Astronomy.

Here's an astronomical mind bender:

So the light from the sun is 8 minutes old when it reaches earth, whereas the light from Betelgeuse is 427 years old. We see an 8 minute old Sun, and a 427 year old Betelgeuse. Therefore, the farther away an object is in space, the "older" it is. This shouldn't be too much of a shock.

Take this same concept and apply it to the expanding universe. Say from the moment of creation our galaxy is zooming astronomically 'east', relative to another galaxy that is zooming 'west'. If the galaxy becomes a distance longer than 14.6 billion light years away, it is impossible for us to see it, since the light from the galaxy when it reaches earth would be *older* than the universe itself. And since there have been objects we have identified as being cloes to 13 billion light years away, the "distance" is plausable.

In conclusion, as HUGE as the universe is, there is a near infinite amount of it that is impossible to ever see. Ever. Galaxies, stars, planets, possibly life, all could exist without us ever being able to know it existed.

Other astronomical sidenotes: The light that comes to earth from the sun was generated by nuclear hydrogen to helium fusion at the Sun's core over a *million* years ago. The gravity at the core of the sun is so strong, and there are so many particles densely packed that the light bounces off of them and gets sucked back in, for over a million years until it hits the radiosphere, where it zooms out of the rest of the sun and to our eyes within 8 minutes.

I'll add a few more interesting ones when I have a chance,

Cheers,

Munk