Time traveling - Astronomy Magazine

Published: February 21, 2011

Scientists viewed galaxies that date to a time just 600 million years after the Big Bang. Their light took nearly 13.1 billion years to get to us. NASA/ESA/G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and the University of California, Santa Cruz)/ R. Bouwens (UCO/Lick Observatory and Leiden University)/the HUDF09 Team

We can determine the distance between us and those galaxies as the difference between our distance from the Big Bang and the distance of the observed galaxies from the Big Bang. That is: 13.7 – 0.6 = 13.1 billion light-years. The light from those distant galaxies traveled for 13.1 billion years to reach the Hubble Space Telescope — we are finally observing it right now.

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