justme +FollowLooking at the night sky may feel like watching the present, but in reality it is a glimpse into the distant past. Because light takes time to travel through space, everything we see in the universe appears as it existed long ago. Light moves at about 300,000 kilometers per second, which is incredibly fast but still limited. When astronomers observe objects millions or billions of light years away, the light reaching their telescopes began its journey millions or billions of years in the past. In other words, space works like a natural time machine. If a hypothetical civilization were located 65 million light years from Earth and had a powerful enough telescope, the light arriving from our planet today would have left Earth 65 million years ago. That period corresponds to the late Cretaceous era, when dinosaurs still dominated Earth before the mass extinction event that ended their reign. This concept highlights how time and distance are deeply connected in the universe. Observing distant worlds means observing ancient history. The farther we look into space, the further we look back in time, revealing snapshots of the universe as it once existed. Sources: NASA; European Space Agency; Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; National Radio Astronomy Observatory #astronomy #spacetime #sciencefacts #cosmos #astrophysics #fblifestyle #mindcanvas21Share
