In principle, if we live in a closed universe destined to recollapse in the future, light emitted by our galaxy when it was an infant could travel completely around the universe going in a straight line, and return to itself. The inhabitants would be using powerful telescopes such as ours and by looking straight out into space, see an image of the Milky Way when it was just a few million years old or less. The problem is that for this to work, we have to be living in a closed universe, and I believe if my recollection of cosmology serves me, one that is almost on the verge of final recollapse. Neither of these conditions seem to be met by the observations which show the universe to be open and infinite with barely its 'critical mass' and certainly in a state of expansion.