How does light intensity from a distant galaxy diminish according to the inverse square law?
Answer
Rapidly as the distance increases.
The inverse square law dictates that the intensity of radiation, such as light reaching a telescope mirror, decreases proportionally to the square of the distance separating the source and the observer. This means that for galaxies billions of light-years away, the amount of light energy, specifically the number of photons, reaching the telescope is minuscule, necessitating extremely long exposure times to gather sufficient signal for any detailed observation.
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