People are saying that The Pillars Of Creation have been destroyed, and will take 400-500 Million light years to reach us. Can someone explain how do we know it when the light hasn’t reached us?

Question

People are saying that The Pillars Of Creation have been destroyed, and will take 400-500 Million light years to reach us. Can someone explain how do we know it when the light hasn’t reached us?

In: 1444

Answer 1

It’s a bit pop-science to say things like this.

The speed of light is what it is because that’s how fast causality itself can propagate information across the unbroken fabric of space.

So it’s cause and effect that moves at the speed of light, and light just happens to be the only thing that can ride that limit.

We can make predictions of course, but how we’re seeing the Pillars now is how they “really are” to us in any meaningful sense.