system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Since the speed of light is finite, how do we know that the galaxies’ shapes are really the way they appear?

For example, the Andromeda galaxy is not situated perpendicularly to Earth, so the light from it’s northernmost point takes longer to reach us than the light from the southernmost one, which surely creates some distortions?
gpt
It does, but it's small and we can account for it when necessary. Galaxies are on the order of ~100k light years in diameter and rotational periods are on the order of ~100s of millions of years so it's a minor effect.