How can we see anything from 13 billion light years away?

Dear Wilhelm:

"Wilhelm" wrote in message
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"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox wrote in
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Supposing that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, how can the
Hubble ST see a galaxy 13.0 billion lightyears away?

I just wish I could get a simple answer to a simple question.

So your first lesson needs to be that HST did not resolve an object "13.0
billion lightyears away". It resolved an object from which light had been
travelling for 13.0 billion years. The CMBR is older still than this
(about 13.4 Gy), and we have been mapping it for decades. Based on our
current velocity, we are just 10-14 Mly from our "starting point" at the
Big Bang. And every other object is likely equally close to its beginning.

The "13.0 billion lightyears" is comparing "there then" to "here now".
They are incrementally different Universes, different sizes, and different
time rates (hence the red shift). And yes, expansion had kept us "ahead"
of the light from that particular galaxy, until HST spent 400 orbits
capturing enough light to resolve it.

Adding sci.astro, so that wiser heads might be able to give you a simpler
answer than "visit Ned Wright's Cosmology webpage and here's the link"...

David A. Smith