Whenever you observe an object, you aren't viewing it in its present state.
Instead, we're held back while light travels through space.
Visible artificial satellites appear as they were ~1-2 milliseconds ago.
The farthest naked eye Solar System object, Uranus, is 2 hours and 40 minutes in the past.
The closest stars, in Alpha Centauri’s system, are ~4.3 light-years away; there, it’s early 2016 on Earth.
The second brightest star, Canopus, sees a pre-Industrial Revolution Earth: 310 light-years distant.
Deneb, anchoring the Summer Triangle, appears as it did 2,615 years ago; Athenian Democracy is a century away.
Eta Carinae, 7,500 light-years away, witnesses the Black Sea’s flooding.
The oldest naked-eye starlight arrives from V762 Cassiopeiae, 16,300 years old: when humans first entered North America.
Numerous visible globular star clusters are farther, with Messier 3 the most distant.
It’s 33,900 light-years away, corresponding to the final demise of Earth’s Neanderthals.
Galaxies outdistance all other visible objects.
The Triangulum galaxy even bests Andromeda: 2.8 million light-years away, predating Homo Habilis.
Only temporary, transient events are farther.
Gamma-ray burst GRB 080319B was visible for ~30 seconds on March 19, 2008.
7.5 billion light-years away, its light predates Earth’s existence by ~3 billion years.
Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words. Talk less; smile more.