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Can the James Webb Space Telescope see galaxies over the universe's horizon? (www.space.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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hmm, light on answers but interesting questions

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Btw, the whole measuring expansion via redshift, EM waves aren't affected by the expansion? Because expansion would be 3D (not 2D) and we and our devices would get "bigger" too, not experiencing any difference...

Edit: getting downvoted for questioning my understanding...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Disclaimer: I could be wrong or not up to date, but this is my current understanding.

On the small scale, forces like electromagnetism and gravity pull things together much much faster than the rate of cosmological expansion. That's why "we" don't expand, and neither does our frame of reference. There's a potential end to the universe where the rate of cosmological expansion (which increases over time) finally exceeds gravity and electromagnetism and eventually even the strong force, causing everything to fly apart forever.

Light waves propagate through spacetime itself, and basically it ends up being that there's nothing pulling it back from expanding as the space it travels expands.