2011-01-13, 05:51 AM
xpimnoob Wrote:those galaxies in the pictures posted, WHEN did they exist? do they still exist?
More than likely... no. What we see is the light from x amount of years ago, depending on how many light years away from us they are.
For instance, a galaxy 4 billion light years away would be over 4 billion years older than what we see. That Galaxy may be there, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the same as the galaxy we see. It could have changed many, many times over. It may have collided with another galaxy. It may have even been completely overtaken by a black hole by this point in time.
What we see of that 4-billion-light-year-away galaxy is what it was 4 billion years ago, not what it is today.