The stunning new photos of the pillars of creation are made even more stunning when you consider the massive scale – 5 light years tall, 6500 light years away. How do we get photos of something that takes 6500 years for the light/image to reach us ?
EDIT: ya’ll I feel silly now after having a day to think about this. I’ll blame my initial confusion on sleep deprivation. Goodnight.
In: 2
same way we take any photo: we point the camera at it, and press the button.
If it “takes 6500 years for the light/image to reach us”, the photo shows how the thing looked like 6500 years ago. it might look different now (e.g. if a star went supernova i.e. blew up), but we will not know until light from that event reaches us.
On Earth, you cannot take good pictures of far things because there is lots of air between the camera and the thing, and air often blurs images because of fog/smoke/heat ripples/etc. But there is no air in space. There are dust or gas clouds that block our view, but they are rare. In fact, pillars of creation are such a cloud.
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