<p>The answer is Yes.</p>
<p>Everything you see in deep space is old. We see the sun 8 minutes in the past, the Proxima Centauri we see is 4.2 years old, The Andromeda galaxy we see is 2.5 million years old, The black-hole scientists took a picture of is 50 million years old.</p>
<p>The deeper we look, the older it is, because the light we see has to travel a longer distance from there to earth.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-25T15:21:10.390Z
2021-09-25T17:50:19.210Z
2021-09-25T17:50:19.210Z
Was'
<p>When I look at my clock (which is 3 metres from my chair) I see how it was about 10 nanoseconds ago.  I don't see the clock &quot;now&quot;, but always a little time in the past.</p>
<p>When you look at the sun, you see how it looked 8½ minutes ago.</p>
<p>When you look at GN-z11 you see how it looked 13.4 billion years ago.</p>
<p>That is a fundamental fact about our universe.  You can never see anything as they are &quot;now&quot; you can only see how they were at some point in the past.  The picture depicts an older time.  This is true of every single picture ever taken! But with galaxies, this is very useful. We can see how the typical galaxy has changed over the history of the universe.</p>
<p>(Kashikawa-san is wrong in a couple of ways. It has taken light 13.4 billion years to travel from GN-z11 to Earth.  But the expansion of the universe over that time means that the distance is actually more than that, about 33.5 billion lightyears, but that is 3.2e23 km or 32 followed by 22 zeros. Big, but not as big as he claims.  These details don't affect the meaning of my answer)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-25T23:03:45.080Z
Regarding a nanosecond per foot (approximately), see [Admiral/Dr. Grace Hopper nanosecond](https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_692464), including [David Letterman show](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=grace+hopper+nanosecond+letterman+show&t=osx&ia=web) appearance.
Basil Bourque
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-25T23:40:49.710Z
To anticipate a question that might follow closely from this, there is no way to get around this delay and see what's there "now". The reasons go far beyond this question, but in short, due to relativistic time dilation and length contraction, there's actually no way to define a universal "now", and any mechanism for transmitting information faster than light would also allow for transmitting information backwards in time.
Christopher James Huff
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-26T10:45:29.877Z
Haha! got you nice demonstartion!
Gamin8ing
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-25T15:19:40.723Z
2021-09-26T13:33:03.013Z
2021-09-26T13:33:03.013Z
James K
<p>As we know light has a <em>definite speed</em> i.e. <span class="math-container">$c=299792458$</span> m/s so it takes some <strong>big</strong> time to travel from distant galaxies, right? So I always wonder about the big telescopes and big space companies captured the photos of very distant galaxies. Are they as they were many generations ago or they are fresh (means we see what happened at the time of capture)</p>
<p>Like the GN-z11 galaxy the farthest known galaxy to man!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>From previous studies, the galaxy GN-z11 seems to be the farthest detectable galaxy from us, at 13.4 billion light-years, or 134 nonillion kilometers (that's 134 followed by 30 zeros) ~stated by Nobunari Kashikawa</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/I0NWP.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/I0NWP.png" alt="Credit: NASA/ESA; P. Oesch et al. (2016) ,ps: taken thru website astrobites.org" /></a></p>
<p>Does the picture depict an older time? Like light may have taken <span class="math-container">$13.4$</span> billion years to travel, so the galaxy might be that much old?  Does this mean the observable universe might be older than I might think?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-25T14:22:28.620Z
Does this answer your question? https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/40719/23762
Daddy Kropotkin
<distances><time>
Is the information about space we have old?
Gamin8ing
# Is the information about space we have old?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-09-25)

As we know light has a *definite speed* i.e. $c=299792458$ m/s so it takes some **big** time to travel from distant galaxies, right? So I always wonder about the big telescopes and big space companies captured the photos of very distant galaxies. Are they as they were many generations ago or they are fresh (means we see what happened at the time of capture)

Like the GN-z11 galaxy the farthest known galaxy to man!

> From previous studies, the galaxy GN-z11 seems to be the farthest detectable galaxy from us, at 13.4 billion light-years, or 134 nonillion kilometers (that's 134 followed by 30 zeros) ~stated by Nobunari Kashikawa

[![Credit: NASA/ESA; P. Oesch et al. (2016) ,ps: taken thru website astrobites.org](https://i.sstatic.net/I0NWP.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/I0NWP.png)

Does the picture depict an older time? Like light may have taken $13.4$ billion years to travel, so the galaxy might be that much old? Does this mean the observable universe might be older than I might think?

**Tags:** distances, time

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Does this answer your question? https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/40719/23762  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2021-09-25. Score: 10 | Accepted answer

When I look at my clock (which is 3 metres from my chair) I see how it was about 10 nanoseconds ago. I don't see the clock "now", but always a little time in the past.

When you look at the sun, you see how it looked 8½ minutes ago.

When you look at GN-z11 you see how it looked 13.4 billion years ago.

That is a fundamental fact about our universe. You can never see anything as they are "now" you can only see how they were at some point in the past. The picture depicts an older time. This is true of every single picture ever taken! But with galaxies, this is very useful. We can see how the typical galaxy has changed over the history of the universe.

(Kashikawa-san is wrong in a couple of ways. It has taken light 13.4 billion years to travel from GN-z11 to Earth. But the expansion of the universe over that time means that the distance is actually more than that, about 33.5 billion lightyears, but that is 3.2e23 km or 32 followed by 22 zeros. Big, but not as big as he claims. These details don't affect the meaning of my answer)

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: Regarding a nanosecond per foot (approximately), see [Admiral/Dr. Grace Hopper nanosecond](https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_692464), including [David Letterman show](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=grace+hopper+nanosecond+letterman+show&t=osx&ia=web) appearance.  
> **username_5**: To anticipate a question that might follow closely from this, there is no way to get around this delay and see what's there "now". The reasons go far beyond this question, but in short, due to relativistic time dilation and length contraction, there's actually no way to define a universal "now", and any mechanism for transmitting information faster than light would also allow for transmitting information backwards in time.  
> **username_0**: Haha! got you nice demonstartion!  

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### Answer by username_2 on 2021-09-25. Score: 3

The answer is Yes.

Everything you see in deep space is old. We see the sun 8 minutes in the past, the Proxima Centauri we see is 4.2 years old, The Andromeda galaxy we see is 2.5 million years old, The black-hole scientists took a picture of is 50 million years old.

The deeper we look, the older it is, because the light we see has to travel a longer distance from there to earth.


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