How can we observe background radiation?

[murrr]

If the background radiation went off in all directions when the universe was only 400,000 years old, how do we see it considering we formed much later?

 

[bonzelite]

from:<br />http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/cmbr_home.html<br /><font color="yellow">About 100,000 years after the Big Bang, the temperature of the Universe had dropped sufficiently for electrons and protons to combine into hydrogen atoms, p + e --> H. From this time onwards, radiation was effectively unable to interact with the background gas; it has propagated freely ever since, while constantly losing energy because its wavelength is stretched by the expansion of the Universe. Originally, the radiation temperature was about 3000 degrees Kelvin, whereas today it has fallen to only 3K.<br /><br />Observers detecting this radiation today are able to see the Universe at a very early stage on what is known as the `surface of last scattering'. Photons in the cosmic microwave background have been travelling towards us for over ten billion years, and have covered a distance of about a million billion billion miles.</font>/safety_wrapper>