Expert: James Gort - 4/11/2010

Question
If the images we are able to take now of the early universe are how it looked billions of years ago, what is that area of space where these first galaxies formed theorized to be like now? Are there new galaxies, black holes, nothing at all or something else?
Thank You

Answer
Hi Jason,

The early universe looks very much like the present universe.  To a very large degree, the universe appears homogeneous (except for galactic clusters and unexplained voids) and isotropic.  It doesn't matter if we're seeing early galaxies (which formed quite early after the big bang) or galaxies in our neighborhood.  Star formation is similar (although early stars are Population II - metal poor, and stars near the sun are Population I - metal rich).  Since galactic and stellar evolution is similar no matter where we are (or the time frame), if we could observe those early stars "now", we'd see a stellar population very similar to that of our current neighborhood.  We'd see lots more Population I stars, of course.  As far as we can tell, we'd see no difference at all from our neighborhood!   Yes, a few black holes might form (when a very massive star explodes), but that happens in our neighborhood, too.  

Which makes sense.  What if we're being observed now from that early universe?  Except "now" is 10 billion years later.  The big bang happened "everywhere" (we were part of it), so those distant observers would see our environment as it existed perhaps 10 billion years ago.  They wouldn't see our sun (it hadn't formed yet), but they'd probably see our young Galaxy.  They might ask themselves "I wonder what that young Galaxy would be like right now"?  And we know the answer - it's simply our little corner of the universe!  

Hope that helps.

Prof. James Gort