Greetings my dear friends of this prestigious platform, undoubtedly, when we observe our environment we can witness the presence of countless bodies or objects that make up the space-time, where we have had to develop our existence, and this is possible to capture it through the rays of light that carry images to our eyes, this characteristic of light is what has allowed it to be the main tool for astronomy in the search for understanding of our external universe.

Introduction

Undoubtedly my dear friends when we raise our heads we can somehow observe some astronomical bodies of our outer space, however, with the naked eye is very difficult to capture other celestial bodies that are at a greater distance, for this, the field of technology has developed a great amount of optical tools that has greatly improved the visualization of these more distant bodies, and of course, this action is due to the light, since through it each image is transported to these optical instruments and from there to our retinas, then, these optical instruments implement to the maximum the phenomenon of light for the purpose previously stated.

Therefore, if we want to understand our outer universe we have to relate to the main object of study of the wonderful science of astronomy, that is, light, and this is because any kind of information of our majestic universe we get it under the essential language of light, and as it has been proven, this phenomenon travels at a finite speed which we have approximated around 300. 000 km/s or more precisely 299,792,478 km/s in vacuum, and this is really a fact, since for such action we have implemented elementary technological tools such as cesium clocks and also laser devices.

Implication of the finite speed of light

This essential characteristic of light (finite speed) gives astronomy an interesting aspect related to the time of occurrence of astronomical phenomena, therefore, we will always be outdated because whenever we observe the outside universe we will undoubtedly see the past, and although we strive to constantly update it would not be possible to achieve such a task, and the deeper our look at the universe, the greater the degree of outdatedness, for example, the rays of light we observe from our neighboring galaxy, ie Andromeda, came from approximately 2. 500,000 years, therefore we observe it as it was for that time, in the same way it would be the inverse process, that is to say, if someone observed us from that galaxy.

Throughout the years we have designed wonderful optical instruments because as we know, in astronomy we can only study through images of these astronomical bodies because usually we can not touch or reach them, this aspect has made man design vital and useful tools with the help of technological advances such as telescopes to mention a very recognized example in astronomy, and how we can see in the following figure 1.

_{Figure 1. Telescope and binoculars as tools for the interpretation of light emitted by astronomical objects or bodies}

Therefore, it is very important to express that every time we can visualize from our planet a certain object or astronomical body, we have to take into account that we are seeing it as it was at the moment when these rays of light began to propagate towards our eyes, then, we are appreciating them as they really were in the past, and we must also emphasize that no matter how big our telescope is or how much technology has been applied to it, the important thing is to know that everything depends on the speed of propagation of light at a given time either directly to our natural optical system (eyes) or to any other artificial device such as binoculars or telescopes.

Conclusion

In conclusion we can say that light is an electromagnetic radiation with which we have been able to learn about everything that surrounds us, since it has all kinds of information of the objects or bodies under study, for example, through the decomposition of the same in its component colors or wavelengths we have managed to obtain or know the chemical composition of such objects or astronomical bodies to highlight an example.

Therefore, we can say that with technology and the essential phenomenon of light applied in astronomy we have been able to know everything related to our majestic universe and observe extraordinary phenomena such as the one shown below.

Until another opportunity my dear readers.

Note: All images are of my authorship and were elaborated using Power point.

Bibliographic references consulted and recommended

[1]Aprendiendo del universo

[2]Tecnologia para la astronomía