• Question: When we look at stars that are billions of light years away, because light takes time to travel are we essentially looking back into the past?

    Asked by pinkelephants17 to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Bang on! That’s why the furthest we can see is 13.8 billion light years away because the light from there has taken the entire age of the Universe to get to us.

    • Photo: Amy Tyndall

      Amy Tyndall answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Yep, exactly that! The Universe is most likely a dramatically different place in reality, compared to what we’re seeing now…

    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 17 Mar 2013:

      Yup! This means that we can look back at earlier versions of our Galaxy, which is very handy for trying to figure out how our one (the Milky Way) was formed.

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