[Question_Assumptions]

So, exactly how fast have things been moving apart since the Big Bang if we could get 12.9 billion light-years away from this object in 13.7 billion years? At best, assuming it was traveling in the opposite direction for the 0.8 billion years before the light left it and could have traveled no more than 0.8 billion light years if it were traveling at the speed of light, and our proto-galaxy similarly moved 0.8 billion light years in our current direction, we would have had to travel at least (and probably more than, since they couldn't travel at the speed of light) 11.3 billion years since that point in time. That would have us traveling at an average of 0.83c (the speed of light), wouldn't it, essentially outrunning the light for 12.9 billion years. wouldn't it?

[SpaceBar]

Your question is answered here: Universe Measured: We're 156 Billion Light-years Wide!

with additional background information here.

[SpaceBar]

The single most important statement summing up both articles being: Distances obtained as the speed of light multiplied by a cosmological time interval have no direct physical significance.

[DigitalVideoDude]

I asked the same question this way...

If this light was emitted 13 billion years ago,
And our galaxy probably did not even exist at that time,
And the universe had not expanded to the current region of our galaxy yet,
And this light has traveled 13 billion light years to get here,
How did the matter that makes up our galaxy out-run this light so that we could be here when the light eventually arrived 13 billion years later?