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The fact that we can see back in time ..... to the early universe no less... is really one of the most underrated and miraculous things humans have achieved. W
by wideareanetwork 6y ago
The fact that we can see back in time ..... to the early universe no less... is really one of the most underrated and miraculous things humans have achieved.
When you think about it, it’s truly astounding.
- gbrown 6y agoWell anyone can see a few million years back in time just by going outside on a dark night and looking at one of the nearby visible galaxies with their eyes. Knowing that this is what is happening is indeed a great achievement.
- inetknght 6y agoUnfortunately, that's not quite true in many populated cities. Light pollution means the night sky is starless.
- gbrown 6y agoNot starless, surely. Stars like Sirius and Betelgeuse should be visible just about anywhere, and that gets you 8-500ish years back at least.
- cgriswald 6y agoWell, it’s sort of true. There are places within cities where you can’t see the Andromeda Galaxy, but you don’t have to leave those cities entirely in order to see it to some degree.
- Keysh 6y agoTo be a bit pedantic: that’s only true for the Andromeda Galaxy (distance ~ 2,4 million light years), which is very hard to see with the naked eye. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are easy to see (from the Southern Hemisphere), but are only about 150,000-200,000 light years away.
- polishdude20 6y agoYou could also argue that "seeing" doesn't necessarily mean "perceiving". I can point my eyes to the exact spot where the Andromeda Galaxy is, or even other galaxies further away, and not actually perceive anything. But tint amount of photons from that galaxy still hit my eye. But that's being obtuse..
- fairity 6y agoCan you clarify? Aren’t we still observing an old state of any galaxy we see in the skies, simply due to the fact that light takes time to travel to us?
- planet-and-halo 6y agoI believe OP's point is that which state you're seeing varies by distance. We see Andromeda as it was millions of years ago, but we see other stars as they were "only" hundreds of thousands of years ago. Closer = more recent picture, Farther = older snapshot.
- Keysh 6y agoYes, exactly. (The Triangulum Galaxy, M33, can sometimes be seen; at ~ 3 million light years, it’s further away and thus an even older “snapshot” than Andromeda.)
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago> the Andromeda Galaxy (distance ~ 2,4 million light years), which is very hard to see with the naked eye That's due to light pollution in populated areas. If you're out in the deep desert, it's not that hard to see. The night sky in the desert is a very, VERY different experience from what most people have seen from the city. It's like you're on a different planet.
- Keysh 6y agoI’ve seen it from fairly high in the Sierra Nevadas, far from any cities, and I still think it’s very faint.
- RHSman2 6y agoTechnically every thing you look at is in the past.
- nanis 6y ago> The fact that we can see back in time ..... to the early universe no less It seems to me that this one is a freebie.
- RHSman2 6y agoBeing able to look out into the universe and understand what it is we live in is truly a magical thing. It is all there but seems to be so far from most people’s comprehension
- Aperocky 6y agoThat's more of a property of our universe, specifically, light speed. The telescopes are an engineering achievement, no doubt.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- totalZero 6y agoThe observable universe is a representation of its own history.