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
You kind of answered your question already.
The speed of light is 2,999*10^6 m/s or something like that, so that is the speed it travels. Always when you see light it is from the past time. Coz it is bound by the speed of light.
Same for the speed of sound 300ish m/s, when you hear it the aggregator for the sound already happened a relatively long time before your perception of it.
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