If you was on a distant planet with a super powerful telescope would you see past events in detail?

Question

For example, if you was fortunate to somehow stand on a remote planet, say 50 light years away, armed with a super powerful telescope (patent pending - just send me £10 million english pounds to my swiss bank account and I will gladly give you the design) would it be possible to see all events on earth occuring 50 years ago in detail?

...hmm thanks for the answers so far.. I'll perhaps wait for a kind hearted alien to record the earths past history on his high spec telescopic non light distorting technology (Betamax?) 50 light years away, and then pass through a local worm hole or something so I can view it - hopefully over the next few days.!

Answer 1

If you were on a distant planet 50 light years away several things would need to be true to see the past.
1. You would have first of had to get there in less than 50 years. That is assuming you could go faster than the speed of light and not experience a time dilation effect. (for example, using a stable wormhole)
2. There are no large gravitational fields in your line of sight that would distort the light.
3. There is no other slightly significant light source nearby.
4. There is no other type of object blocking your line of sight.
5. Your telescope must be able to enhance light very significantly.

If all of these were achieved, you would be able to see past events, but keep in mind there would still be limitations
1. The best views would be from above everything.
2. Buildings, weather, smoke, and volcanic ash could block your view.
3. You would not have any sound to go with what you are seeing.*
4. You're line of sight is very likely to be blocked by Earth's Sun for a large amount of the year.
5. Solar flares on both sides will interfere depending on their size.
6. Your best vantage point would probably be from a stationary spaceship that is not in any solar system. The planet you would be on will rotate and revolve around its star, thus making observations very difficult.

*Unless the event is accompanied by a radio transmission, and you have the proper equipment to hear that as well.

Answer 2

Consider three galaxies as the points of a triangle of 1:2:Square root of 3 proportions (90, 60,30 degree triangle) and label them A, B, C

One galaxy explodes at the point of the 60 degree angle. Light from this explosion will reach the 90 degree point say in 10 light years. The light will reach the 30 degree point in17.32 light years.

Therefore observers on the two non-exploding galaxies will see the same event at vastly different periods of time.

Similarly when you look at the night sky you are seeing events that occurred at different times millions of light years away.

We are already looking back in time from earth bound optical and radio telescopes, telescopes in orbit around the earth and from space probes.

A simple analogy is for a person from Glasgow and another from London to set off at the same time to travel to Edinburgh at exactly the same velocities. Which one will reach Edinburgh first?

Answer 3

Assuming that the telescope is powerful enough, then yes.

Although it's not as simple as that. IF you were instantaneously (as in no time passed at all (impossible, but use your imagination)) transported to this planet 50 LYs away then you would see things 50 years in your past.

I'm trying to think what would happen if you travelled to the planet at say 90% of the speed of light (or something like that), but I can't really get my head round it! I think that the quicker you get there, then the further back in time you would see .... possibly! Hmmmm ... that's a thinker

Answer 4

If you had such a telescope, and were located 50 light years from Earth, you could indeed watch events that happened on Earth 50 years ago. However, you could NOT see events going on there now. The speed of light prevents that.

Answer 5

given the telescope was sufficiently powerful, theoreticaly, yes. You can pose the question another way. With said telescope, would you be able to see past events on other planets? To a limited degree, you can do this tonight without your marvelous 'scope. The light from distant stars originated some time in the past. In some cases, thousands of years in the past.

Good luck with the patent.

Answer 6

Yes, if you were on this planet you would be looking at the earth as it was 50 years ago.

Of course, the fastest you could get to this planet is the speed of light, so if you left right away you would get there just in time to see earth as it is now.

If you had a friend on the planet who video recorded what he saw now and sent it to you now, it would arrive in 50 years time, at which point you would be looking at the earth as it was 100 years ago.

Answer 7

na man its not possible if it was with our technology right now... we would already be sending people in the past and bring them back to see what had happened. but if you stand on a planet really far way (50 light years) not at all its the same time you are going.... but you can jump into time though.... i was watching the science channel and they showed when an anstronaut lives in space for over a year he or she jumps into time by 3 seconds so hes 3 seconds older than on earth he should be...there are going to be ways to jump into the future like in star trek how they open a portal to go through we can do the same but the problem is that that the portal on earth is so damn small its size is smaller than an atom... but in the future we'll have portals like that scientists are thinking how to enlarge them........

Answer 8

In principle, yes. But you would have to travel to that distant planet (at least 50 light-years away)....

I always thought it would be nice if a race of aliens - living at least 33 million light years away had built a giant mirror facing earth, well, 33 million years ago. We could then see the reflection of what happened on Earth 66 million years ago...

Absolutely impossible...but I really would like to see what dinosaurs actually looked like.

Answer 9

If the telescope allowed you to see in such detail you would be viewing what happened there 50 light years ago, yes!

Answer 10

Liquid Ice---light years doesn't mean actual years. It a measure of time compared to the speed of light and travel. If a planet is 100 light years from Earth, then it would take you 100 years to get there traveling at the speed of light ( 186,000 miles per second.)