General Astronomy

[Don Karleone]

 

[manimanc]

All this talk of looking into the past fascinates me.

So if we're looking at distance galaxies that are billions of light years away, where are we on the scale?

Is someone looking at us who are in the next Galaxy with the same perspective?
Are we past, present or future?

 

[Mozzer]

All this talk of looking into the past fascinates me.

So if we're looking at distance galaxies that are billions of light years away, where are we on the scale?

Is someone looking at us who are in the next Galaxy with the same perspective?
Are we past, present or future?

Great question. I've just looked it up and light never stops travelling, where does it go? Armed with a grade 3 CSE in science I can watch astronomy programmes on TV up to a point then get completely lost!

 

[talkativesprout]

Sorry for the high school science question but why doesn't the light degrade, tried google but get varying degrees of answers i understand or go above my head...so explain like you are talking to a Rag or Simpleton as it is known in Manc circles

 

[markbmcfc]

Sorry for the high school science question but why doesn't the light degrade, tried google but get varying degrees of answers i understand or go above my head...so explain like you are talking to a Rag or Simpleton as it is known in Manc circles

I'm no Physics expert but I would say its because there's nothing in the way to degrade light, no resistance to disrupt or distort it. You're looking at light that's travelled directly to your eye over billions of years with nothing in its way.

If there was then you simply wouldn't see it

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Light gets weaker the further it travels

 

[crazyg]

As David Bowman once said:

 

[Mozzer]

Light gets weaker the further it travels

So does it slow down, can it slow down? Messes my head up.

 

[argyle]

I'm no Physics expert but I would say its because there's nothing in the way to degrade light, no resistance to disrupt or distort it. You're looking at light that's travelled directly to your eye over billions of years with nothing in its way.

If there was then you simply wouldn't see it

The image released yesterday does show that light can be distorted.

There is a galaxy group in the middle of the picture which is about 4 billion light years away. It is a huge mass and warps spacetime (the fabric of space).

As such the light travelling behind it is warped and bent around it, these are the arcs/smudges in the picture. That light has been travelling for 13 billion years.

 

[argyle]

This is the way NASA should have presented the the picture yesterday. It's incredible.