What are light years? Contrary to popular belief, Light years are a unit of distance, not time. It was called by this name because it measures the distance traveled by light at the maximum speed (300,000 kilometers per second) during an entire year. Therefore, when we read that an object is one light year away from our solar system, it is 9 trillion kilometers away!

This has an effect that is as amazing as it is overwhelming: the image we see of the stars corresponds to the past. Light has a speed limit, it can’t be faster, so if a star is 10 light years away, its image or, in other words, the light that gives us the image we see, took 10 years to travel in the vacuum of space until reaching Earth.

• discovery = technology

wide understanding distances in space Part of our understanding of being, which is constantly increasing with Technological and scientific developmentAnd with the continuous march of our curiosity.

For example, that was until creating a file telescope that we discovered Solar System I was over 6 years old planetsAnd less than 100 years ago we realized that there are others galaxies Plus us, when we now know that there are over a billion of them, and Andromeda, the closest, is 2.5 million away! light years from here!

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James Webb Telescope, A Light-Year Journey Into Space History

• Time Machine.

On December 25th, the latest embodiment and ambition of human curiosity will be launched into space. after Three decades of planningbuilding and testing James Webb Space Telescope will replace the famous Hubble. After a month-long journey to its final orbit beyond the moon, New infrared light telescope He will put on his sunscreens and mirrors, in a sequence that is as rehearsed as it is risky.

If an error occurs in one of the hundreds of required operations scheduled for the installation, the loss will reach 10 trillion dollars and hundreds of them science projects They will remain incomplete. But everything will go well, the telescope It will assume its optimal location for observation, away from solar radiation, a A new era in science Perhaps in human consciousness.

100 times stronger and more capable than long life Hubble, the new flagship of NASA It will open a window for borders being, and thus to the past, with such clarity that it will help us answer deeply transcendent questions.

How was the universe as we know it formed? what happened next the great explosion?, where is the habitable planets?, and what is a file dark matterAnd why don’t we see it? When it makes up 95% of all matter in the universe.

the Exploring the universe It continues every day, because human curiosity is as vast as space. Correct launch, travel and correct deployment of a program James Webb Space TelescopeIt won’t guarantee the answer to our most important questions, but it will bring us closer than ever to understanding the origin of everything, including planet and who inhabits it.

By: Carlos C. Escalante Vera, MSc in Neuroscience from University College London and BA in Psychology from the Autonomous University of Yucatan.