Why is looking out the same as looking back in time?
Why do people sometimes say that when we look at stars that are very far away that we are "looking back in time?
This is because of the finite speed of light. When we look at objects that are very large distances away from us, the light that is hitting us now will have started from the object quite a long time ago, so in effect we aren't looking at what the object looks like now but what it looked like some time ago (when the light was emitted).
For example, Alpha Centurus, which is the closest star to us, is about 3 light years away. This means that the light we see from it now left the star about 3 years ago. Something catastrophic could have happened to the star within those three years and we can't know about it yet (it's unlikely by the way!).
Even the light from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to reach us here on Earth, so when you look up at the Sun you see it as it was 8 minutes ago! (PS. It's not advisable to look at the Sun too closely as you can damage you eyes).
Related questions:
- Who first measured the speed of light?
- How long does it take for the Sun's light to reach us?
- How does the Earth compare in size to the entire universe at the present epoch?
- How is it that we see farther out in space (farther back in time) than in the past?
- Do we really observe the edges of galaxies at different epochs?
- When measuring the expansion of the universe, do astronomers consider that they're seeing how galaxies moved long ago, not today?
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