The Hubble telescope captured an image 230 million light years away. It was an image of two galaxies colliding 230 million years ago.
If I had a space ship that contained FTL technology and traveled 230 million light years into that direction, my understanding is that it would look completely different from the image that was captured by Hubble.
**I guess my question is… how do we get that image from 230 MILLION years ago only just now? My brain wants to view it as a physical photo that flew over here because I just can’t wrap my head around how an old image could reach us.**
** FYI: I read through [this ELI5 thread on light years](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2igdlf/eli5how_light_years_work/) and I still don’t really get it. Maybe I’m just stupid :/
In: Physics
The image that we see is 230 million years old, if we move in the opposite direction from the light coming from the collision at exactly same speed, the image will stay constant and never change. However, if we look at the collision after travelling 20 million light years in the direction of the collision at the speed of light, the image that we see will be 210 million years old and not 250.
Feel free to correct me as I’m not a 100% sure.
Latest Answers