Things in space being “xxxx lightyears away”, therefore light from the object would take “xxxx years to reach us on earth”

Question

I don’t really understand it, could someone explain in basic terms?

Are we saying if a star is 120 million lightyears away, light from the star would take 120 million years to reach us? Meaning from the pov of time on earth, the light left the star when the earth was still in its Cretaceous period?

In: 292

Answer 1

Fun fact: like 90+ some percent of the galaxies visible to us now, are already beyond a point where their (currently emitted) light can ever reach us… ever.

This is because all of space is expanding faster than light can travel through it, only defied by celestial objects that are close enough together to keep themselves locally bound.

This means they will fade out to nothingness, never reachable to us in any way (unless we figure out how to cheat spacetime’s limits and wormhole there).