Well, it's not exactly eternal, it's that time is not passing for that photon. It's also (as far as I can tell) only correct to say that distances shrink as spe

Well, it's not exactly eternal, it's that time is not passing for that photon. It's also (as far as I can tell) only correct to say that distances shrink as speed increases when you're talking about massive objects. A photon would not experience space contraction in any meaningful way.