I just don’t get it.
According to the theory of special relativity, nothing can ever move faster than light speed.
But due to the expansion of the universe, sufficiently distant stars move away from us faster than the speed of light.
And the explanation is…that this universal speed limit doesn’t apply to things that are really far away?
Please make it make sense!
That’s the thing. Nothing is actually moving, it just appears to be. Space itself is increasing in volume.
The best analogy isn’t that everything’s moving, it’s that everything’s shrinking.
If you and a friend are stood 2 metres apart and you suddenly both shrink, proportionately, to half your height, the distance between you is going to appear to have doubled, when in fact it’s still 2 metres.
Universe expansion turns this on its head by the distance itself growing to 4 metres without either of you moving.
As to why this doesn’t happen on local scales: gravity has a tendency to hold nearby things together. And closer still, atomic forces.
For now. As I understand it eventually space will be so stretched out even atoms will degenerate.