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That when we look up at distant stars, nebulas, & galaxies and the like...we are looking back in time. What we see could have been gone for decades, centuries, or longer.



“longer” is an understatement. The Andromeda galaxy, which is viewable by the naked eye, is 2.5 million lightyears away. And that’s the closest galaxy to us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy


One of the closest, anyway. Yeah, most distant objects observed are over 10 billion years "in the past".


Sort of similar to tree rings and even... dirt. We could probably dig in our backyards and find artifacts of 10,000 year old life. We are transient.




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