[Physicist]

The reason it looks so small is because the speed of light is finite. From our point of view, the stuff 13.7 billion years out is only just forming. The stuff beyond that hasn't formed yet. If the universe were older than 13.7 billion years, we'd see stuff farther out.

[parsifal]

What if we just couldn't see stuff that far away because the light petered out. parsy, who is not doubting your expertise, but who is hard to convince.