When NASA releases images of objects that are light years away, are we viewing the image in real time?

Answer 1

The light takes time to travel.
Speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second in vacuum.

The photons that hit the Hubble telescope took 2.5 million years to reach the telescope, which is why you can't see anything far away in real time. The sun is 8.2 light minutes away, the moon is 1.2 light seconds away, and the star Sirius is 8.2 light years away. This is how the Andromeda galaxy looked 22.5 million years ago.

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Answer 2

Layla Anderson

No, images released by NASA of objects light years away are not in real-time. The images depict the objects as they appeared when the light from them reached Earth, which might have taken years or even centuries.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.