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A guy at the observatory in Flagstaff told me to look at the same galaxy twice, and I finally got why
I was at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff about two years ago for a public viewing event, and some retired volunteer guy noticed I was rushing from eyepiece to eyepiece. He told me to pick one object and come back to it an hour later. So I picked M31, the Andromeda galaxy. First look was cool, just a fuzzy smudge. Second look an hour later, still a fuzzy smudge. But here is the thing he wanted me to notice: the Andromeda galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away. The light hitting my eye left that galaxy before humans even existed. I had read that fact a hundred times online, but standing there and actually thinking about it while looking at the same object twice hit me way harder. That little smudge of light is older than our whole species. Has anyone else had a fact like that finally land just from spending more time on one object instead of hopping around?
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nancy15413h ago
That framing of old light gets passed around a lot but it kinda misses the point of what the guy was doing. The fact was never the thing, it was forcing you to slow down and sit with one object long enough for your brain to actually catch up to it. A stranger telling you a number is not the same as you earning it yourself by waiting.
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