if light takes years to reach us from distant stars how can we know what is happening now in the sky?

Question

Stars are located light years away.
So light takes as many years to reach us which means that we are seeing images of stars that are probably years to millions of years old.
Is it possible to know what is happening right now in space ,or are we really helpless in this matter?

Answer 1

We're helpless, nothing travels faster than light, so there no way the we can have any knowledge of whats goinf on ther right now. Even if we sent something closer the information it sent back would travel slower than light,'

Kind of a weird idea when u think about it.

Answer 2

we ARE really helpless, as you say. The closest star is 3 light years away, so it could have disappeared just under 3 years ago and we'd still see it shining. Other stars are going to be 100 or 1000 or millions or light years away, so they could have disappeared a littler under 100 / 1000 / 1000000 years ago and we'd still see them shining.

The light from the sun itself takes about 8 minutes and 19 seconds to reach us. So the sun itself could have disappeared 8 minutes and 18 seconds ago and you'd still see it shining bright.

Frustrating, I know. But there is no way around it. At least not based on our current understanding of the universe.

Answer 3

We are really helpless about knowing what is happening right now. You have to wait for many years to reach the light (information) from there to us.

Answer 4

yes,its not possible and yes, we r totally helpless let me give u an example light frm our nearest star takes atleast 8 yrs to reach earth so that's why we can see the light which start traveling 8 yrs before reachs on earth after 8 yrs.so,we r able to the how the star was 8 yrs ago but not how it is now

Answer 5

Obviously, we are seeing what happened years to billions of years ago. The nearest natural body to us is the Moon that's 238,000 miles away. We see it as it was 1.28 seconds ago. Our Sol or Sun is the nearest star at an average distance of 93,000,000 miles. We see it as it was about 500 seconds or 8.33 minutes ago. The next nearest stars are the three in the Alpha centauri system. They are over 4 light years away as compared to 8.33 light minutes for the Sun and 1.27 light seconds for the Moon. Some other stars are millions and billions of light years away.

Answer 6

It doesn't really matter because to affect us it needs to reach us and nothing can reach us faster than the speed of light. Therefore what we see in the sky it might really be history but it is what is affecting us now and thus it is what is hapenning now for us.

Answer 7

Try billions of years old in some cases. And yes, we're helpless. What we see today really happened many, many yesterday's ago.

Answer 8

Currently no technology able to see what is happening long distances but we can predict scientifically what may happen using physics plus cosmology knowledge.

First ly if we travel at light speed we remain of same age theoratically ,as reasearch on time concept is going on. time is
complex entiry.
.

Answer 9

they probably can get here a helluva lot faster then we can through some technology you can't imagine (on account of you having a lack of imagination) Lightspeed is the fastest thing byh our standards. Personally I think they saw our planet, got bored and moved on to the next outer space hooters

Answer 10

We are helpless, in fact philosophically speaking it is the same as if nothing has happen. It is an information horizon, there is nothing we can do about it.