Re: why do old objects in the universe appear far away

Thanks for coming to MadSci, where we provide answers! :)

First, let's start with a common misconception. The Universe did not start as a single point. The Universe started in a much denser state, that is objects were much closer together. The portion of the Universe that we can see may have been packed into a very small volume, but the Universe could also be much larger than the portion we can see.

The rest of your question highlights an important fact about astronomy, though, one often not appreciated. Because the speed of light is finite (though large), we see distant objects not as they are now, but as they were when the light left them. (This also applies to everyday life. You do not see the person on the other side of the room as he is now, but when the light left him. However, on human scales, not much happens in the few billionths of a second that it takes for light to cross the room! :)

Thus, we see distant objects in the Universe as they were when they were young.

This fact is now being exploited by various groups of astronomers. They are looking for increasingly more distant objects, in the hopes that these younger and younger (i.e., more and more distant) objects will tell us something about how galaxies first started forming. The currently most distant, youngest object is RD 1. The Hubble Space Telescope has also done much to help identify galaxies in the young Universe.