This thing is -270°C and is EVERYWHERE

I thought if you had a star far enough away even without the expansion of the universe the eventual slowing of the light wave would degrade to microwave anyhow.  I think I read that in a Stephen Hawking's book.  So to me we will never even have the possibility of measuring the edge of the universe simply because a star farther away enough that it's light or signal would even degrade beyond microwave wavelength.  From our "viewpoint" or ability to measure any signal beyond a star that far away is not possible so we have no idea how large the universe is.  I have heard we understand the size or age of the universe by reversing our detection of the expansion of the universe by determining how fast stars at a known distance are moving away from each other and reverse this expansion to conclude upon a beginning.  Also that the rate is increasing but that takes into account the theory of two leaps of expansion of the universe from the initial big bang, but that is just a theory.  How do we really know there were two or three or even more specific leaps of expansion of the universe except that in order for our cosmological universe expansion theory is designed to fit those parameters.  I think astrophysics takes a considerable amount of poetic licenses to scientifically explain the universe expansion.  The bottom line is the fact we can not measure past a certain point of the universe.  Ok, it could simply be I don't have enough background knowledge to understand the building blocks of physics so it is not going to be possible for me to understand unless I learn significantly more than I already know.  Bummer.