The oldest starlight ever detected comes from primordial cosmic structures and individual stars that formed shortly after the Big Bang, dating back nearly 13.8 billion years.
Astronomers tell us that some of the starlight that brightens our skies is from stars long dead.
Just so with those people I have known in this life who, though gone, still endure in sudden flashes that brighten my existence–a bit of music one introduced me to, a wry turn of phrase from another, a recipe, a remembered story . . . and with each of these flashes, their light shines through the years.
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The nearest star system is Alpha Centauri, whose light takes about 4.3 years to reach Earth.
Light from the center of the Milky Way, out Galaxy, takes about 25,800 years to reach Earth.
Light from the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest Galaxy to us, takes about 2.5 million years to reach Earth.
Earendel is the most distant star observed, as of April 2022, and its light takes about 28 billion years to reach Earth.
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