system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If you looked at the earth from 1000 lightyears away through some kind of ultra magnifying glass, would you see events that happened 1000 years ago?

I'm trying to wrap my mind around the concept of a light year. If a light year is the distance light can travel in a year, I'm assuming that means if you see something a light year away, you are seeing what happened to it a year ago - am I right?
gpt
Yes, you are right.  The way we see the stars, we see them how and where they existed long ago.  If you're observing the sun from the Earth, and witness a coronal mass ejection, that ejection actually occurred about 8 minutes ago, and the light from it is just now reaching us.