When I see these objects that must contain billions if not trillions of stars, I often wonder, are there beings living there? What do they make of what is going on around them? Do they feel the thrill, the terrible humility that comes from realizing how small, fragile and ephemeral we are relative to the turbulent cosmos? Are they beings I could identify with, identify with me, even love each other as friends?
Rod
And more importantly, do they prefer brass or aluminum Burkes?
Just remember that the picture you’re seeing, due to distance from source, is hundreds of thousands of years old, as likely as not. We cannot know what is out there, but only what was out there. Even when you look at the sun you see her as she was 17 minutes ago.
That to me is the really mind boggling thing. I wonder what those galaxys look like right now.
Close:
Sun is approx 8.5 light minutes away.
Moon approx 1.5 light seconds.
Planets vary but something like Jupiter roughly an hour.
10 years at the local planetarium had us rattling off things like that all day long. Don’t mean to split too many hairs…just a few. 
But the thought of seeing back in both space AND time is pretty cool isn’t it?!
Yup. (that’s what I get for trusting to my memory.)
But it does make you wonder what all those things hundres and thousands and millions of light years away look like now doesn’t it? And as the universe continues to expand they may not even be in the place we’re looking any more. In fact, it’s highly unlikely that they are.
It’s true. Even at 186,300 miles per second, light moves painfully slow over the distances we have in our present universe. Even our very closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, at a paltry 2.2 million light years away can only be seen now as it once was that long ago - Back when Australopithecus africanus and Homo habilis were still infant species! 
There are many objects that appear as they once were for example when the dinosaurs were still here. And many yet again that are older then our entire planet and solar system!!
I have it from direct communication with them that they prefer the aluminium; clearly a sign of advanced intelligence.
djm
I know that we see back in time when we look at such images, still, I wonder who is out there now and what they see. It just seemed like a discution of lightyears would have distracted from the moment.
I’m sure you do!
