Eli5. A question trying to understand if you would see events on a planet happening faster if you moved towards it

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If a planet was 5 million light years away from earth, the James Webb from earth would see it as it was 5 million years ago.

And say if we continued to watch this planet from the earth we would see events happening at the same speed on earth.

if I was to fly towards this planet in a space ship with a telescope, would I see events on the planet being sped up and if I was to fly away would events happen in slow motion?

In: Physics

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes, but the amount of the change would potentially be small under realistic conditions. Simplying a ton of other physics stuff that would make it much more complicated as to just play conceptually with light traveling over time:

If you somehow traveled the speed of light, you would “see” 2 years in the span of 1 year moving towards it.

Meanwhile, if you moved away such that you covered 1 light year of distance in 1 year plus 1 second, you would “see” 1 second of that distant location play out over a year.

However likely no person would ever approach light speed, the light you would see would be shifted/altered, and all kinds of other stuff comes into play. In realistic scenarios where you move at tiny tiny fractions of light speed, you might see things indeed moving slightly faster, but not to a level you’re likely to percieve.

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