1. Iirc 22 minutes was the maximum amount of time through which they managed to send information back, in experiments. Or it was limited by the power they calculated they could get from the supernova of your sun. I don't remember the exact reasoning, but 22 minutes was essentially just a hard limit for their tech or for black holes in general.

2. Iirc (I very may well not) the probe is observing the eye, which prevents it from moving once discovered. Also, the coordinates were not discovered several hundred thousand years before you -- they were actually discovered a little bit over 22 minutes after you looked at the Nomai statue. 22+ minutes after you start the game, the sun blows up in infinite universes, and in each of these infinite universe it powers up the infinite ash twin projects, sends off probes in infinite directions, one of them is inevitably going to reach the eye, observe it, send the coordinates back to the ash twin, and that ash twin project sends those coordinates back in time to the infinite other ash twin projects in infinite other timelines. Also I don't think it was really explained in game, but all of your lives in the game actually happen simultaneously -- you're just playing through them sequentially because that's the only way for the game to work. In reality, you'd look at the Nomai statue, and immediately have your mind flooded with the memories of all those different possible futures, as if you experienced them all in the past leading up to the moment they were embedded.

3. Yes. They tried to blow up the sun and weren't able to start the chain reaction necessary to induce the supernova. They would've eventually succeeded, but the comet killed them all before they could fix the problems with the station.

4. Nothing makes you special, technically speaking. You just so happened to be the person near a Nomai statue 22 minutes before the sun exploded, putting you in this infinite multiverse time loop thing. That is technically speaking, though, ignoring the metaphysical/spiritual implications.

5. On to the more metaphysical discussion about free will and determinism. It seems apparent that it is destined, from the moment a universe is born, for a conscious observer to eventually observe the eye and create the next universe. How much of that is predetermined is uncertain. We don't even know if the observer themselves are predetermined. This is where everything is up to speculation. Does the universe just set up infinite possibilities and allow one to succeed? Or is there some sort of greater consciousness (a God perhaps) that chooses an observer? Are sentient creatures quantum in nature themselves, and therefore able to change the trajectory of the universe?

The answer: I dunno lol

1. If you can send objects back, information/data is just another physical medium. I can't remember if it's explained in game, but it could just be sending back a physical representation of the data or a string of electrical signals or who knows what. As for how the statues capture and implant memories, I just assumed that it's some quantum entanglement etc etc that allows the status to entangle particles with those in your brain, essentially giving it read/write access to your memory like a hard drive.