Question

Can you see a billion years into the past?

Answer 1

1. We don't see stars or galaxies as they are now, $46billion$ light-years away.
2. The further we glimpse into our universe, the further we go back in time; thus, the most distant objects are only seen as they existed very early in the universe's beginning.
3. The furthest we can glimpse is about $13.5billion$ years back in time. The fact that these objects are now estimated to be about $46billion$ light-years away is a good thing, but we can't see them as they are today.
4. Therefore they are not observable in the sense that we can see them in real-time. We can see them as they were $13billion$ years ago and when they were once very close to us since the universe was also much smaller then, but they have moved since then.
5. A unit of length in astronomy equal to the space light travels in a vacuum in one year, or approximately $5.88trillion$ miles, is known as a light-year.

Hence, we can see billions of years into the past.