Quote:
Originally Posted by ngcles
.....we get a distance of 854.1 million light-years.
This is well and truly pre-cambrian times when the Earth looked "a bit different" -- to say the least. The only land-plants back then was a bit of pond-scum and some lichen. The rest was rocks, dirt and water. To me it is fascinating and awe-inspiring that the light you are looking at from this tiny, faint galaxy left its source when the Earth looked so dramatically different and spent nearly (in context) a billion years tearing across the cold reaches of intergalactic space just to hit my telescope mirror and form an image. I think about what the ground around me must have been like 850 million years ago and what has happened since then.
Really, if that isn't awe-inspiring, I dunno what is. Makes me feel a bit special anyway.
|
Spot on Les, I always dwell on these things when I am observing, thinking of the incredible journey of those photons through time and space, the thin, ever-expanding bubble of light from ancient events that still has enough power to register on your retina as it sweeps past Earth. Of course my window to the past is somewhat shorter than yours, but with the help of a basic CMOS sensor I can capture traces of ancient light from objects like qasars that belong to the infant universe, before our Sun and solar system existed, but that shine like beacons through the aeons. And some of the brighter extragalactic supernovae, ancient cataclysms that appear like dim Milky Way stars - just imagine the vast regions of those galaxies that must have been sterilised by these events. Of course, we never know what light of 'new' events is about to sweep over us from night to night as we observe - let's hope that if it's a cataclysm, it's travelled a long, long way!!!
Cheers -