Is it possible all of the galaxies photographed by Hubble no longer exist? Only their previous light?

Answer 1

It is possible, even probable, that some of them are gone . . . but "all" is a dangerous concept. I think that some still remain today though some probably don't.

Answer 2

Not a whole galaxy. Maybe some stars in a galaxy. A galaxy is made of many stars with different ages. So a whole galaxy doesn't go "off" like a city during a blackout. It'll be one star at a time with each star going off with millions or thousands of years in between each of them. And it'll take us thousands and millions of years to realize that a star had died. For the second that a star dies we'd still see the light. Say that a star is one million light years away from Earth. It'll take us one million years after the death of the star for us to not see the light from the star anymore. If the sun suddenly died (which is unlikely for it has a few billion years left in it) it would only take us eight minutes to realize that we were doomed.

So to really answer your question - not a whole galaxy - but maybe a star or two.

Answer 3

Galaxies have life spans of several billion years. In fact, the only way we know of for galaxies to be destroyed is through collision and merger with another galaxy. We see such collisions happening in several cases and it is thought that this is the main way elliptical galaxies form. So, it is quite possible that some of the galaxies in the Deep Sky Survey have merged into larger galaxies, it is not likely that they have simply disappeared.

Answer 4

I don't think "all" of the galaxies are gone. But I think it is more than likely that many of the galaxies photographed are currently gone, but we still see the light they produced.

Answer 5

It is possible, but highly unlikely, especially with your use of the word *all*.

Answer 6

Not all of them but mabye some.