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Of course, that is also making the rather LARGE assumption the we here on Terra Firma are at the absolute center of the Universe.

Or are astronomers going to claim they have found the exact center of everything? If they are now making such a claim, it'd be the first time I've ever heard it. ;-)

Of course, that is also making the rather LARGE assumption the we here on Terra Firma are at the absolute center of the Universe.

Of course it's the absolute center. Everywhere is the absolute center. Also the absolute edge.

DC: "that is also making the rather LARGE assumption the we here on Terra Firma are at the absolute center of the Universe."

I don't think you need to make that presumption, just the observation of two galaxies, each 10E9 ly distant and both in opposite directions.

I guess what I'm missing is how we can view the light from any galaxy that is 10E9 ly distant in a universe only 15E9 years old. Even if that galaxy was moving at c, the age (since the big bang) would have to be twice that value or 20E9 years (time for the galaxy to arrive at that distant point, plus the time for the light to return to us).

--Boot Hill

Actually, from wherever you are in the universe, it "looks" like you're in the center of the universe. The Big Bang wasn't an explosion in itself, that's the oversimplified version presented by Hollywood.

It's hard to visualize, but imagine that the Universe is a big piece of raisin bread. The raisins represents each galaxy. Now, as the raisin bread expands in the oven, from every point, it appears as though the raisins are going -away- from you--ignoring the edges of the bread, there's no real "center". Also, those raisins who travel the furthest/fastest are ones that are further away from you (if you were in one corner of the bread, the raisin that travels the furthest away would be on the opposite corner).

So from any given point in the Universe, it looks like you're at the center of the universe because space is expanding just like the bread is. Also, space itself is curved, so you can't reach the "end" of the Universe any more than you can reach the ends of the Earth.

Hope this clears up things.