Added: Terell Prisco - Date: 24.10.2021 04:29 - Views: 14669 - Clicks: 1689
Coe et al. For most space objects, we use light-years to describe their distance. A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles 9 trillion km.
That is a 6 with 12 zeros behind it! When we use powerful telescopes to look at distant objects in space, we are actually looking back in time.
How can this be? Light travels at a speed ofmiles orkm per second. This seems really fast, but objects in space are so far away that it takes a lot of time for their light to reach us.
The farther an object is, the farther in the past we see it. Our Sun is the closest star to us. It is about 93 million miles away.
So, the Sun's light takes about 8. This means that we always see the Sun as it was about 8. The next closest star to us is about 4. All of the other stars we can see with our eyes are farther, some even thousands of light-years away. Stars are found in large groups called galaxies. A galaxy can have millions or billions of stars. The nearest large galaxy to us, Andromeda, is 2. So, we see Andromeda as it was 2. The universe is filled with billions of galaxies, all farther away than this. Some of these galaxies are much farther away.
It is That is only million years after the big bang. It is one of the first galaxies ever formed in the universe.
Learning about the very first galaxies that formed after the big bang, like this one, helps us understand what the early universe was like. This picture shows hundreds of very old and distant galaxies. The oldest one found so far in GN-z11 shown in the close up image. The image is a bit blurry because this galaxy is so far away. Oesch Yale UniversityG. Illingworth University of California, Santa Cruz. What Is a Light-Year?
More to explore What Is a Galaxy?
How Far Away Is the Moon? What Is a Nebula? If you liked this, you may like: What Is a Barycenter? What Is the Big Bang? What Is a Galaxy? More Less.
How far is forty light yearsemail: [email protected] - phone:(295) 726-2695 x 3564
List of star systems within 35–40 light-years