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.
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The distance is only an issue in the sense that the light is very dim and red-shifted. So we just need equipment that is sensitive enough to pick it up, and designed to detect light that is shifted toward that end of the spectrum (e.g. infrared).
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