I admit that I am not a physicist, but this really surprises me. Is this actually true?
Yes - nothing can travel "through" space faster than the speed of light. However if the space itself is expanding then two objects which are at rest (relative to their local environment) can move away from each other at speeds greatly in excess of the speed of light. To conceptualise this - imagine a balloon with dots drawn all over it. Blow up the balloon. Now none of the dots have moved relative to the balloon itself, yet they are now further apart from each other. Read Lawrence Krauss's book "The Physics of Star Trek" - he explains this beautifully (exploitation of this was the justification for how the warp drive worked) - MMGB
In the [observable universe]? (that sphere around us of radius n light years, where n is the age of the universe in years) I do not think it is possible for two objects to recedes faster than the speed of light. Due to the initial inflation the universe is much larger than the observable universe and perhaps the example here is the relative motions of galaxies that are farther apart than n light years and so are not mutually observable -- however such objects can never be seen from each other and in generaal it is impossible for either to have any influence on the other ever (I think). --Eob
No, objects in the observable universe can be receding faster than the speed of light. It works because what we see lies in the distant past - just because the objects are too far away for light to reach us now, doesn't mean they were when the light was emitted.
I am not saying that it is wrong that galaxies can move apart faster than the speed of light--but it is completely alien to my (admittedly limited) understanding of relativistic physics. Egern
I'm not sure of the which is right, but perhaps this issue is being conflated with the apparent superluminal velocity of distant galaxies? [1] -- DrBob
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