From a spaceship traveling near speed of light towards Earth, would you observe a fast-played movie?

Question

That is, assume you are very near the speed of light. Assume also you have a powerful telescope on board that lets you observe a certain location on Earth. Moving towards Earth, you are, at each point in time, capturing light as it was a bit more recent compared to the points you left behind in your travel. Would this not mean that you'd see fast-forward action in play at that location you're observing? Would this not be aided if we also add the assumption of relativity for time, and suppose that time inside the ship has slowed down so the perception of light collected by the telescope becomes even more dramatical? Anybody with knowledge on such similar phenomenon?

Answer 1

As you approach the speed of light heading towards Earth you would observe things happening on Earth faster than they would appear to be happening to a person who was on Earth. You would also see a Doppler shift in the light, so in addition to seeing things happening faster, they would also shift to higher frequencies. Something that appeared red on Earth could appear blue to you while something that appeared blue on Earth would appear violet. Of course the speed at which you are approaching Earth would determine how much the colors were shifted.

Answer 2

According to Einstein's Special Relativity, if you were traveling at near the speed of light toward Earth, you would experience time dilation. Let's say you're traveling at 0.99C. If one year has passed for someone on Earth, then for you only about 26 days will have passed.

So if you were looking through a telescope on the rocketship at Earth, what would you see? Would you see a fast playing movie? My answer is NO. The reason I say that is because your telescope is collecting light coming from Earth. The light is coming at you at the speed of light, not faster. And you're traveling at .99C, so that means it'll take you about one-year to get back to Earth (even though to you only 26 days has passed)

So what happens is that if you're looking through the telescope in real time? You'll find that you are able to only get bits and pieces of the images (because so much of the light coming from Earth will have passed you and the telescope without you even registering that they're there). However, if your "telescope" can record the light coming from Earth, then you'll find that it has collected a whole year's worth of data during your traveling back to Earth. So when you playback the movie, you'll see everything moving normally, not faster.

PS - yes it is also true that you'll see everything blue shifted, but in addition, the images would be squeezed into a small cone in front of the ship.

Answer 3

Because your assumption is "near speed of light", it means it's never as fast as light (of course), as long as it's slower than speed of light, all the physics laws are still correct.

It means when you travel toward earth, although at a very fast speed, and the image comes from Earth to you at light speed, the relative velocity is still C (speed of light) not faster. So you'll see everything normally. Anyway since it's too fast and your eye can't catch all the images, I think you're correct that you'll see a fast-played movie, as your eyes will miss some of the transition images, you can only see the lastest images.

Provided that your speed is not as fast as light speed, the time inside the ship is still the same (wont be slowed down).

But if your speed is light speed, everything can happen, EVERYTHING.

Answer 4

No. The only way that a spaceship could travel faster than light, is to use magic. Once you allow magic into the discussion, then ANYTHING can happen. So I say that the spaceship would turn into a 10-foot talking dog. Pink, of course. With green stripes. Hypotheticals are okay, but you got to stick to physical possibilities.