Gazing up at the Night Sky

When viewing the night sky, you're looking back in time.

British spelling.

The reflected light from the Moon left its surface 1.3 seconds before it made contact with your eyes.

The Sun is about 150 million kilometres or 93 million miles from Earth, so light leaving the Sun takes over eight minutes to reach us. You’re seeing the Sun as it was just over eight minutes ago.

Now, consider the farthest object you can see with your own eyes.

The light from the Andromeda Galaxy that you are seeing now began its journey 2.5 million years ago, so you are seeing the galaxy as it was way back then.

From the surface of our planet, we can see roughly 2,500 stars on a clear night.

By the way, the speed of light is roughly 1,080 million kilometres (671 million miles per hour).

I will be sharing a variety of fascinating and educational short stories about the universe and life in my publication.

You can read my stories here. 

Knowledge Sponge  Enjoy.

<><>

Thank you for reading my publication “Knowledge Sponge” You can subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.