Imagine I have a telescope with strong enough zoom to observe the earth like google maps street view, if I looked at the earth very closely from 500 light years away, would I see 1524 happening in real time? Or time as it is now?
In: Planetary Science
500 light-years away from here, the light reaching your telescope has been traveling for 500 years to get to you.
So you see the images of 500 years ago.
If you had a magical telescope large enough to resolve that much detail, then yes, you would be seeing 500 years in the past. In other words, you’d be seeing Earth in 1524.
Yes, but the light Gathering capabilities would have to be huge it would be like the size of a solar system telescope
You’d see what’s happening 500 years in the past. Unfortunately it will take more than 500 years to get there, so your best shot at seeing the earth from 500 years ago is aliens sharing the photos they took of us.
I explained this to my nephew when he was about 8 years old and his mind was completely blown. He thought I was making it up so he asked my bro in law, and when dad confirmed it he was hooked. Kid is 5 years older and way more into Physics than I ever was at his age. It was cool to spark that thing in his mind that made him start seeking out science.
yes, however it is impossible for you to do it by traveling there normally, you would need to warp spacetime or magically appear 500 LY away
Yes. Because the light leaving Earth would travel for 500 years before or reached the lense of your scope.
However… This magical telescope would be on the scale of the size of an entire solar system. And then you’d need a way to track the movement of the Earth, and tune out the insane amount of light noise from the sun.
Someone 500 light years away would see light that had spent 500 years travelling, so light generated in 1524.
That’s what a light year is — how far light travels (in a vacuum, if you’re being pedantic) in a year.
Now, chances are they wouldn’t be able to see people or cities, or detect any signs of civilization, because 500 years ago the human footprint was much less. However, they would probably be able to see oxygen in the atmosphere, which they would likely assume is a sign of life.
Yes, and it’s the same for us. We are observing the universe in the past. Some stars we are observing now are probably exploded a long time ago. The information from that event is stored in the light, and it haven’t reach us yet.
It was actually a thing in a scifi show i watched a while ago in which earth was made uninhabitable. The crew of the FTL ship took one last look at earth while their equipment could still reach it, and they saw a blue planet instead of the barren rock they left behind.
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