[btmiller]

The basic principle is that space itself is expanding—the empty stuff between all those stars, planets, and galaxies. Not only that, but the expansion of space itself? It’s accelerating. And the further away something is, the faster it’s accelerating. Allow this play out over time and with acceleration unbounded, space itself starts to expand faster than the speed of light. And since the speed of light is our universal speed limit… that means the far reaches of universe will forever be out of reach. Eventually our own night sky will go dark (minus the stuff closest to us like the sun, Milky Way, and Andromeda) as more and more objects continue their acceleration away from us.

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe

[caf]

One consequence of which is that if intelligent life arises in the Milky Way again after that point, they will likely have no way of knowing that there ever were other galaxies beyond the local group.

We're somewhat lucky to be around to see the universe when it's comparatively young.

[alex_sf]

Can't that be true for us, though? If we had JWT 4 billion years ago, who knows what we would have seen.

[oldjavacoder]

Another similar take: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_....