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TheOzarkWizard t1_j9l94rw wrote

Meaning in the past or future?

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strugglz t1_j9ld8d7 wrote

According to the article way in the distant past when the universe was about 3% of it's current age, which is about 440 million years old. Or 14.3 billion years ago.

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[deleted] t1_j9mrc3k wrote

Then our solar system is in that shot somewhere.

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IFUCKINGLOVEMETH t1_j9nz616 wrote

That's not how that works. When we're 'looking into the past' with telescopes, we're not viewing our own position from the outside. We're viewing a different part of the universe as it was long ago.

On top of that our solar system is probably less than 5 billion years old.

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[deleted] t1_j9oqbu6 wrote

But our galaxy was out there at that time. Everything is moving, traveling farther and farther apart.

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IFUCKINGLOVEMETH t1_j9orf5o wrote

I think your misconception is because you imagine that the universe has a central point it's expanding away from, sort of like the way a firecracker begins at a point then explodes outward from that central point. But that's NOT how the universe expands.

Unlike a firework exploding outward from a central point, the universe has NO central point that every galaxy is moving away from. They're all moving away from eachother, but not from a center. In that sense, you could consider ANY point in the universe to be the center, since every point in the universe is moving away from every other point in the universe.

I hope this video can clarify for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLHtIWLkHg

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[deleted] t1_j9ortwm wrote

Well that's what we were taught. That the big bang happened from a tiny molecule, smaller than the tip of a pin.

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IFUCKINGLOVEMETH t1_j9osglj wrote

Teachers use simplified analogies to explain concepts to children in terms of things they already understand.

So while it might make sense to explain to a child what the Big Bang is in terms of something like a firework, the analogy is very flawed if you want to understand how cosmic inflation works in a more in-depth way.

My previous comment contains a youtube link, I think the video should clear things up for you. Here it is again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLHtIWLkHg

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xiodeman t1_j9mvxuu wrote

Everyone reports this as the past. But it’s the present. i.e. if the sun disappeared then the earth would still orbit around “where the sun was” for eight minutes according to how this gets reported.

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