...created the heavens...

Slide 3 of 49

In the above slide, the universe is seen ~1-2 billion years after its creation, when it was filled with spiral galaxies. The further away we look into the universe, the further back in time we are able to see. The universe is expanding at nearly the speed of light, which allows us to look back in time nearly to the creation event as we look further into space. Astronomy is the only science in which we can directly observe the past. In fact, we cannot observe the present at any location of the universe except on our own planet. Even the light of the moon shows us how the moon looked over one second before we actually see it. The light of the Sun is how it appeared 8 minutes before we observe it. Likewise, the nearest star appears how it looked 4 years ago and the galaxy nearest to us, the Andromeda galaxy, appears to us as it existed 2 million years ago.