A recent conversation with my biology teacher inspired me to write this post. An interesting question surfaced and I would like to share it with you all !!! ♥
It takes sunlight approximately 8 minutes to reach Earth. Different conclusions can be drawn from this piece of information. For instance, the sunlight you see now out the window is the sunlight emitted eight minutes ago. In other words, it would take the Earth eight minutes to realize that the Sun is missing after its actual disappearance. DUN-DUN-DUN (~insert drum rolls~) The Sun could actually be dead right now but we just don't know because we are still living in the radiation cast by the Sun. Thus, whenever you look up at the sun, you see it as the it was eight minutes ago! Pretty amazing right?
A similar scenario would be seeing the light from another star when the star has already been dead. For examples, a light year is the distance light travels in a year. Therefore, a star that is located 10,000 light years away would emit light that's going to reach Earth in approximately one million years. When the light is detected, the actual star would mostly likely be dead by then. In other words, the distance between Earth and the star is so great that it takes light 10,000 years to travel to Earth, which by then, the star no longer exists. Keep this in mind, any star you see now, you see into its history instead of the way it is. Now, would you compare your eyes to a time machine? The fact that we, human beings, see into the history of stars, never fails to fascinate and enthrall me of the various possibilities that the universe can offer ! I hope you enjoyed reading this post and stay tuned for the next one!
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| An interesting quote to reflect on. (http://picgerm.com/the-star-quotes/) |
I never knew that every time we look at the sky, we are actually seeing the universe in the past. The quote you chose is really cute and your overall bog is extremely interesting!
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