I was wondering a few things. First how far can the Hubble Space Telescope actually see?
Actually the telescope itself has no limits – but the Universe itself does. Hubble is a medium-sized (2.4 meter) telescope with very sharp optics and very good instruments. This enables the telescope to see very faint objects despite its relatively modest size. According to the theory of Big Bang, the absolute observational limit to telescopes (as we know them today) is a ‘sphere’ of opaqueness surrounding us positioned approximately 13-14 billion light years away. It is called the ‘surface of last scattering’, and is also known as the source of the ‘microwave background radiation’. Up to 300.000 years after Big Bang, the Universe was totally opaque to light. This means that we know that we (when we look out in the Universe and thus back in time) will never see past, or through, this barrier. Today galaxies that have been seen with Hubble are at a distance of approximately 12-13 billion light years. In the coming years more distant galaxies will undoubtedly be detected, but the limit f
