Vannakkam
The Universe (space) has always intrigued me. It's just so vast, infinite and mysterious. I enjoy stargazing whenever I have the time, trying to identify constellations and planets. It's fun! Until, of course, upon further research a few years ago, I became dumbfounded with the fact that I was actually looking back in time. Then it all felt quite eerie and uncomfortable. But the fun and mystery was multiplied several times. I also felt sort of "backdated" and eventually, helpless, like stuck in time.
The stars look so beautiful at night, right? But there's a surprise. In case you haven't realised, the stars you see are what they used to be many, many years ago. It's an image of the past. All this due to the speed of light, and how long it takes for light from those celestial bodies to reach our eyes. What we see right now is a backlog of the sky.
Sunlight takes about slightly more than 8 minutes to reach us here on Earth, and that means when we look at the Sun, it is what it used to be 8 minutes ago. The sun rays that shine on us left the Sun 8 minutes back. Moonlight takes about slightly more than a second, hardly any difference since the Moon is only about 390,000 km from Earth, the nearest object to us, compared to other celestial bodies. The image of the second nearest star, the Proxima Centauri, takes about 4.3 light years to reach us. The more distant stars which are visible to the naked eye are even "older", we are seeing them as they used to be thousands to tens of thousands of years ago, depending on their distance from Earth and how long light from there takes to reach us.
Fascinating isn't it?
The positions of those very stars would have had changed by now, even while we're actually looking at them, and some may have even "died".
I know that modern Hindu astrological timing and planetary positions are obtained from calculations based on books and panchangams that contain planetary records of many, many years. My question is, aren't they supposed to be of stars and planets in the sky at present and not that of thousands of years ago? When did ancient astronomers and astrologers begin recording astrological data, and how would they have known what it looked like in the beginning since what they actually saw was an image of the past? I know it's a cycle, since these celestial bodies repeat their positions over and over again. But if certain planets and stars are in the sky right now, visible to us, are their positions really important or that of the planets and stars which are supposedly there right now, that can only be seen in the future or maybe never at all, since we don't live that long? Do they just ignore the ones that are visible at present and consult their panchangams and records for those that should be there?
Aum Namah Shivaya
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