Q&A: Cosmology

Q:
I read that "the light from some of the quasars Chandra will observe has been traveling through space for over 14 billion years." Is there something here that will relay us information from beyond at a rate faster than the speed of light? If the universe is expanding, we will have trouble catching up to what has a 14 billion year head start at those speeds?

A:
Alas, we will never catch up. Sounds like work, doesn't it? Information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light, so we must resign ourselves to being out of date! The good news is that we can see into our past. The light from distant galaxies tells us what they were like long ago, when the universe was young, and everything was much closer together.