Eli5: How will NASA’s telescope be able to observe stuff happening from billions of years ago?

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I saw a post on reddit saying NASA has a telescope that is able to see the creation of planets and stars from 13 billion years ago. How can that work?

Link to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ke2p2r/nasa_is_about_to_launch_a_telescope_that_can/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

In: Physics

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine light hitting your eyes as information from wherever that light came from, telling your eyes and brain what that thing looked like when it reflected off it.

That light didn’t reach you instantly, it travelled (albeit very quickly) from that thing to your retinas. As a result, what you’re seeing is technically out of date. Always.

We and almost everything else in the universe (that we’re aware of) are time travellers. We just have no way to control that travel – we move forwards, through time, at the rate local effects (gravity and whatnot) dictate.

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