Perspective
I can't help but feel awed when made aware of the inconceivable vastness of the universe.
This galaxy is said to be about 420 Million Light Years away. (the distance light travels in 1 year=5.88 trillion miles)
So this photo is what it looked like 420 Million years ago. Shit. Who knows what it looks like NOW! - It may have completely fallen apart for all we know.
The tail of the galaxy is rougly 280,000 Light Years long - almost 3 times the width of our own galaxy.
And despite it's amazing size - and it's incredible distance from us, the galaxy is only 1 foreground object to an immense backdrop of THOUSANDS more galaxies at distances beyond understanding.
Comments
Yup, I go from looking at the sky to watching a cat, standing on the beach looking at the sea, to watching ants in the garden. Scale is an amazing thing, and contemplating the vastness of the universe is a great way of putting one's own mediocre acheivements in stark relief. :o)
Posted by: Steve | June 14, 2006 12:25 PM
word.
Posted by: Jeff | June 14, 2006 12:47 PM
My question is if that is the galaxy 420 million years ago then how did we get the picture was a satallite launched to get that and if so who launched it for it to get there and send a picture back from 420 million years ago? Just kinda puzzles me but it is very amazing
Posted by: Josh | June 28, 2006 10:08 PM
HA!
Well Josh - the Galaxy is 420 million light years away. That means the light from the galaxy takes 420 million years to get here. So ANY light we observe from that galaxy today - originated 420 million years ago and just arrived here now.
So the image we see today is not what the Galaxy looks like today (the light that tells us that won't get here for another 420 million years)
Make sense? Oh yeah - if there are beings in that galaxy looking back at out MIlky Way Galaxy - they won't be able to see what it looks like now - only what it looked like 420 million years ago.
ON a smaller scale- when you see the Sun tomorrow - what you're actually seeing is the sun as it appeared about 8 minutes prior. That's how long it takes for sunlight to reach the earth.
Posted by: Jeff | June 29, 2006 09:57 PM