Showerthought: Every photo of the moon is technically a time capsule

I was messing with my phone camera trying to get a clear shot of the moon last week, and it hit me. Light takes about 1.3 seconds to travel from the moon to Earth. So when you snap a picture, you're seeing the moon as it was 1.3 seconds ago. That's not much, but compare that to photos of Andromeda galaxy where that light started its journey 2.5 million years ago. It made me think twice about what "now" really means in those deep space shots you see on this sub. Has anyone else thought about how the time delay changes how you look at certain photos?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaret_williams51d ago

Yeah but think about it the other way - that 1.3 second delay also means you're technically looking backwards in time at yourself taking the photo. The light bouncing off your phone and leaving the moon's surface to your camera includes the reflection of you too. It's a weird recursive loop where you're capturing a moment that never truly existed as one single point in time.

phoenix_thompson41d ago

1.3 seconds isn't really a time capsule, it's basically live feed when you compare it to the lag on my satellite internet at home.