Do you understand what it means that the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years away?

Question

That means the image of it that we're seeing now is 2.5 million years old because it took the light that long to reach us.
This is yet another way we understand how old the universe is, and there are objects in space that are much farther away.

Answer 1

yes, but time is not linear .. it is relative ..its like placing the galaxies as dots on a balloon and blowing up the balloon ... everything stretches even time ... time is just somthing we use as a tool .

Answer 2

The Earth is much older than 6K years. I am a Creationist, but I am an old world Creationist. Yes, Andromeda is 2.5 million light years distant. This would indicate that the universe HAS to be at least 2.5 million years old. Otherwise, we could not see Andromeda in ordinary light. I have a theory that may explain things. But you're not going to be receptive unless you can remain open minded. God created Adam and Eve as grown, mature adults. Is it not possible that the cosmos, too, was created as a mature one? Ergo, this would give distant objects the appearance of being much more ancient than they actually are. Yes, I know that this idea is not scientific at all. I can furnish no proof. It is only speculative. But at all events, I still contend that the world is much, much older than 6000 years. The Chinese have been civilized for 5000 years, correct?

Answer 3

Actually, this doesn't necessarily mean that the universe is that old; it simply means that that particular object is 2.5 million light years away. If one assumes that the universe began as a point source, then one can calculate the age of the universe by determining how fast the galaxy is moving, and extrapolating.

However, if one takes the view that the universe did not begin from a point source, and that it may have come into existence at multpile placs and multiple times, then one doesn't necessarily conclude the same thing. Still one would have to admit that the universe is at least 2.5 million years old, as otherwise, the light would have not yet reached us.

The Christians have a clever alternative, in that they can claim that God made it in the state in which we found it, whereby he would have already created the photons reaching us, tricking us into believing that the universe was really that old.

Answer 4

And Andromeda is one of the closer galaxies! The farther from Earth in distance/light years an object is, the farther removed from us in time it also is, so that beyond our own Solar System, nothing in the Cosmos is actually what we are seeing, thus we have no true or absolute concept of what the Universe actually resembles nor what is its state of being! There are allegedly remnants of the "Big Bang" detectable by some of our most advanced instruments. To me, the situation is quite arcane and esoteric!
Addendum: The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second (currently!).

Answer 5

OK a spot of light goes a long way in one year

what is it 356, 000 feet /second ??

--so in a year it goes from here to half way to the nearest star(not counting our sun)

thats one light-year

so the stars black holes quasers etc are much farther away

like say 10 or 25 light years away WoW !

After we go to heaven I think we'll be supervising some planets or solar systems and helping and learning with the angels and Jesus

Be Blessed

Jon

Ps click on my face for 2 good links

Answer 6

And your point is what exactly?

Shouldn't this be over in Astronomy?



BTW Astronomers refer to it as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224.

Is this one of those "Science disproves religon things?"
If so you might enjoy this link to the Vatican Observatory.

http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo/R1024/VO.html

The Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, has its headquarters at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, outside Rome. Its dependent research center, the Vatican Observatory Research Group, is hosted by Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.

The Vatican Observatory Research Group operates the 1.8m Alice P. Lennon Telescope with its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) in southeastern Arizona.

Initially it was for a practical reason, to reform the Julian Calendar, like so many national observatories that were started, e.g., to improve navigation at sea; later at the establishment of the present form of the Vatican Observatory in 1891, for an apologetic purpose, in the sense of defending the Catholic Church's positive regard for science; now to join in doing good science in a way that is possible, given the Vatican's other concerns, as part of the consequence that the Incarnation of Christ applies to all human activity.

Oh and Quasars are a whole lot further off, the closest being 240 Mpc (780 million ly) away and the farthest being 4 Gpc (13 billion ly) away.

Answer 7

You are talking as if light is not effected by entropy and is a constant. It isn't. So your theory does not hold.

Light has been slowing down at a logrythmic rate. It could be that thousands, not millions of years ago, such light could reach the earth at a much faster rate. Either that, or perhaps our galaxy was the starting point of creation, thrown out into the depths of the universe, and what we see now is the lag.

Or perhaps God is winnowing you. Not sure on that one.
http://www.schneblin.com/studies/pdfs/winnowing_wheat_chaff.pdf

“The natural laws of the universe are so precise that we have no difficulty building a spaceship to fly to the moon and can time the flight with the precision of a fraction of a second. These laws must have been set by somebody.” - Wernher von Braun

Answer 8

Sure, we understand that -- that it's the most distant object that we can see with the naked eye! Assuming, that is, that where you live you have something resembling a dark sky, and not in Denver like me. Can you say 'light pollution'?

My point is, not all Christians/creationists subscribe to the young-earth model. There are several extensive websites dedicated to old-earth creationists like me -- John Clayton's Does God Exist page is one, http://www.doesgodexist.org/
And this one is another: http://www.godandscience.org/ ; especially see the page refuting the young-earth model -- http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/longdays.php


Happy observing! Enjoy looking at God's wonderful creation!

Answer 9

Yes swamp, I understand. Is there a question besides that. Do you want me to tell you the approximate speed of light? Or about what the 4th dimension is. Why would this wonderous thing be any part of an argument against religion, or did you mean it to be?

The Ol' Hippie Jesus Freak
Grace, Peace and Love in Christ
Peg

Answer 10

And you are sure that is definitely the speed of light? Maybe light doesn't travel like they think it does, maybe it just exists.
After all the world was flat once and the sun revolved around the earth, remember. Maybe we're not really that enlightened about light. Maybe we should dig a little deeper into the mysteries of the universe. Just a thought.

Answer 11

Yes, I'm sitting here on a big ball of water and dirt, flinging through space, third rock out from a Star that is burning and emitting it's light out into space, it keeps us warm. Our Star is part of the Milky Way, that dense spattering of Stars across the night sky, we are in it. There are many other galaxies besides all moving out from a center point away from each other. I'm such a speck of dust in the huge scope of things.