ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Relativistic aberration

Have you ever noticed how things look different when you're moving compared to when you're standing still? Well, this is because of something called "aberration".

Aberration is when something appears to be in a different place than it actually is because of how light travels. Light travels very fast, but it still takes time to get from one place to another.

Now let's talk about "relativity". This is a big word that means things can look different depending on your perspective or point of view.

When you're moving really fast, like when you're in a car or on a roller coaster, you experience something called "relativistic aberration". This means that the way things look to you will be different than how they would look if you were standing still.

For example, imagine there's a bird flying in the sky. If you were standing still, you would see the bird in one place. But if you were in a car driving really fast, the bird would appear to be in a different place because of how the light is reaching your eyes.

This is important to understand because it helps us understand how things work in the universe. It affects things like how we see stars and how we measure distances between objects in space.

So, in summary, relativistic aberration is when things appear to be in a different place than they actually are because of how light travels and how we are moving relative to those objects.