When scietists see somethin happening in the space some million years away from us does that happen that milli

Question

when scietists see somethin happening in the space some million years away from us does that happen that million years ago

Answer 1

yes. the speed of light has been known to be finite for 350 years. so what?

there is nothing astronomers can do about it, in any case.

Answer 2

Yes. The light year is defined as "the distance that light travels in one year." It's a more convenient unit of distance because space is so huge. It is also convenient because if you observe a celestial event that is X light years away, then that also means that it happened X years ago.

If the star Betelgeuse were to explode, then whenever we see the explosion, we will know that it actually exploded about 430 years ago, because it is about 430 light years away from Earth. This would be a spectacular event, by the way, and would brightly light up the night sky, and probably even be visible in the daytime as well.

So if you observe a galaxy that is 50 million light years away, then you're seeing what it looked like 50 million years ago.