Is it possible or am I just nuts?

Question

This is the post from a while ago -

"They say a light year is the distance travelled by light in 1 year. So now if some star is said to be 10 billion light years away, it means it must take light some 10 billion years to get to us, which means that whatever we are seeing of that star at this time is actually 10 billion year old story & what may exist that far right now might be very different than what we can see"

Analogous to the above concept, theoritically, anything travelling (towards us) faster than light would always be invisible, isn't it? If, at this time, something is headed for earth, travelling faster than light, we will never even see it before we are hit. Armageddon without warning... any of you think that could be a possibility?

Answer 1

No it is not possible because nothing not even gravity can travel faster then light. With that said the only possible thing that could happen like that, would be if suddenly and without warning the sun disappears. The planet earth would leave its orbit at exactly the same time we see the last light emitted by the sun.

Answer 2

In the sense of particles traveling across space, nothing travels faster than light. Realise though that "light" refers to the entire electromagnetic spectrum and isn't just visible light. Light can also be slowed by gas and particles of dust it may have to travel through. The maximum speed is 3.0x10^8 m/s though.

Information cannot travel faster than this. However it's thought that things can occure faster than this. A photon is considered to have information. It contains certain quaintifiable properties, such as energy and momentum.

If an information bearing thing were to exceed the speed of light, you might see effect before cause. Strange stuff happens.

Armageddon isn't a subject that can be talked about in the context of science unless you mean giant natural disaster.

Answer 3

Very true..... even if it traveled at light speed we may not see it since even with our vast resource we can only search and keep an eye on about 30%(i think dont quote me) of the space.

But it is a possiblity to travel faster than light. Just because we havent seen/found it doesnt mean it doesnt exist. if something left the sun at 240 times faster then the speed of light we would NEVER see it since it gets to earth in app. 1 second and keeps going.

So yes it is a possibility, but very hard to target billions of light years away. like try hiting a grain of sand 200miles away with a rifle bullet.

Answer 4

The light from a star 10 billion light years away would take 10 billion years to reach us only if it had not slowed down along the way. Maybe it was originally traveling instantaneously (at infinite velocity).

Answer 5

Suppose that there is a big bomb traveling to Earth from a planet ten million light years away. Question: Will we see it? The light reflecting off the bomb will be seen, but the bomb will travel faster than the light reflecting off the bomb. Say the bomb travels at twice the speed of light. If the light reflecting off the bomb takes 10 million years to reach us, then the bomb will only take 5 million years to reach us. No, we will not see the bomb (or rather, see the light reflecting off the bomb).
However, this does not take Einstein's Theory of Relativity into consideration, which says something about compression, but I can't remember clearly.

Answer 6

You're not nuts, you're only logical. it's logical to think like that in the backdrop of the existing theory, but without going deep into it. I'm not a physicist, but can anything other than light travel at the speed of light? If yes then Armageddon without warning is indeed a possibility, however small it is.

Answer 7

Scientists understand the they are looking into the past when they look at distant stars, galaxies, or star clusters. This is one method of determining what the conditions were like in the universe in the distant past.

There is good evidence that nothing can travel faster than light so you concern about something like that hitting us is pointless.

What is more of a concern is something very visible and very large within our own solar system hitting us. We currently have to effective way to protect the earth in this event.

Answer 8

Theoretically, nothing can travel faster than light. This is not just a question of our technology being too crude, the theory says it is impossible for anything to go faster than light.

So you say that is a cop out and you mean hypothetically really and I am just hung up on the word theoretically. So hypothetically, if something could go faster than light, then light could go faster than light too. The theory that says nothing can go faster than light also says that light always goes at the same speed. If the theory is wrong then it can't be depended on to correctly say that light always goes at one speed. So light from an object moving twice the speed of light would be coming at us at three times the speed of light, like shooting a gun from a missile, the speed of the bullet is whatever a bullet's speed is plus the speed of the missile.

OK, so you say I am still copping out and that hypothetically, something that can go faster than light is going faster than light and it shines a light which can't go faster than light. The theory is right about light itself not going faster but wrong about everything else not going faster. Yes, in that perverted hypothetical thinking, you couldn't see it coming.

Now, could Superman see it? Could Spider-Man sense it? Could Superman beat Spider-Man in a fight? Of course he could! Everyone knows Superman is way stronger than Spider-Man!

Answer 9

The first part of your question is right on, but the second part is wrong because no massive object can reach the speed of light, to say nothing of going faster than the speed of light.

Answer 10

the first part about us looking into the past is common knowledg. The second part would be true but it is not possible to travel faster than the speed of light. once you hit the speed of light your mass becomes infinite so you would need an infinite ammount of energy to propell you.