[Unstagram] To Speak of Time, We Need Time

A Single Photograph Contains the Universe's Time
The Present Before Us Is Also the Flow of Cosmic Time

From September 3, 2003 to January 16, 2004, the Hubble Space Telescope orbited the Earth 400 times over four and a half months, capturing 800 exposures at the same angle, focusing only on faint visible light near the constellation Fornax. By stacking these images, scientists created a single photograph with a total exposure time of 11 days. This image revealed about 10,000 galaxies at the edge of the universe-galaxies that had never been seen before and could now be identified with the naked eye. The photograph is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, where "deep" refers to both space and time. This image contains the light from 13 billion light-years away (ultimately, time and distance become interchangeable concepts), as well as the immense span of time layered within. Although subsequent images, such as the Hubble Extreme Deep Field, have extended exposure times and expanded observation areas, it is difficult to match the sense of wonder that came from discovering what was previously invisible for the first time.

Part of the 'Hubble Ultra Deep Field.' NASA

This photograph not only captures the early universe, but also includes much closer galaxies-those that happened to fall within the telescope's field of view, perhaps only a few hundred million light-years away. A single bright dot that looks like a star is, in fact, a galaxy composed of billions of stars. Some stars or galaxies may have vanished long ago in the distant past, but their stories have been delivered to us as light, arriving in our present field of vision as if they still exist. Now, we sit in the present, observing a past not so far removed from the beginning of time. The light emitted by the stars in these galaxies began its journey at different times and places in the past, yet, before us, it becomes a present reality.

A photograph created by cosmic time and light is not the exclusive domain of dignified names like the Hubble Space Telescope. Every moment we capture in a photograph is, in fact, a collection of the universe's time and light from the past. To speak of the present, we need the past; to discuss time, we need time itself. The time required here is not only physical time, but also time as the journey that carries light, time as the principle of existence and change for all things, and time as it is perceived and experienced by humans. Using science to accumulate and reveal the invisible light of the universe is also a way of understanding and utilizing time. Not long ago, the Vera Rubin Observatory, the largest existing camera and astronomical telescope, drew attention by releasing ultra-high-resolution celestial images. Its project is called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), emphasizing the view of the universe as both space and time.

In another sense, taking a single photograph is our way of recording a cosmic journey-an encounter and a trace left within the universe. Everything that briefly passes by in the same world at the same time and disappears without a greeting has, in fact, traveled across vast distances and ages to arrive here. Those who see a photograph as just a picture may never look beyond it, but those who recognize the cosmic value of every encounter are, in their own way, recording the universe. The novelist Kim Yeon-su wrote about a single second: "What matters is the fact that our entire lives, our entire universe, are spent for that fleeting moment" ("The Moments We Sent," Maumsanchaek).