Check out this monster...a cluster of galaxies 7 billion light-years away from Earth - that's a staggering distance. It was discovered by the South Polar Telescope, aimed at a black void in the sky, so it's what they call a "Deep Field" exposure.
This grouping of many hundreds of galaxies contains some 800 trillion suns. It is the most massive galaxy cluster ever discovered.
We view distant objects as their light arrives at the Earth, so we are seeing this cluster, not as it is today, but as it was 7 billion years ago when the light we are receiving was emitted from it.
It really makes you feel tiny, doesn't it? The Earth, which pretty much contains everything we know and love, is, as Kansas sang so well, "just a drop of water in an endless sea".
1 comment:
All we are is dust in the wind.
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