and if Nasa was able to collect earth's reflection on the mirror, then could we see the actions that took place on earth during those 100 years???
2007-02-13 23:51:22 · 7 answers · asked by Stream 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
yeah I am sorry, I meant 100 light year ;-)
2007-02-14 00:20:36 · update #1
of course and u will see me dancing
2007-02-14 19:34:21 · answer #1 · answered by Skimmer 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
First of all, let me just inform you that such a thing IS NOT and WILL NOT be possible, but just because this is an interesting question, I'll take time out to answer it. There are many things to be considered here:-
1) A mirror reflects light, it doesn't store it. It is not like a CD where you can store stuff. So, no you cannot see the actions that took place during those hundred years.(Come on man, that's impossible. It's like saying that your mirror can tell everything that's happened in your bedroom after it was installed.)
2) Hundred years away? That means, the light travelling from the Earth to the mirror will be of very low intensity, which means the light reflected back will be of low intensity which then means that we won't be able to see the reflections.
3) Let's suppose that the mirror is humongous. Even if it is bigger than our sun, remember that it is 100 years away, which means that it will appear as a tiny spot to us. So, we won't be able to see the reflections.
4) We are so very small that we are not visible from the troposphere, how did you even think that we could be seen from a point which takes nearly 100 years to reach from earth??
5) The light will take time to travel to the mirror and back. It will be like running 'Half Life 2' on a PII PC. That is, you will see the reflection after many years.
There are many more things to be considered but I've got to go. For any more queries, feel free to mail me.
2007-02-14 00:20:15 · answer #2 · answered by Vignesh M 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You mean 100 light years away?
It would take much longer than 100 years to get it in to position - then all you'd have to worry about was the fact that it would be impossible to resolve it in a telescope - but it gets worse - you won't see what was in the mirror 100 years ago - because the light has got to get back to us. The light would be 200 years old.
Basically it just wouldnt work - for lots of reasons.
2007-02-14 00:08:32 · answer #3 · answered by Leviathan 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No way. (I assume you mean 100 light-years away). The Moon is only 1.3 light-seconds away, and even the best telescopes can't see things smaller than about 60 yards across on the Moon.
The nearest star (after the sun) is over 4 light-years away, and we can't even see something as big as a planet going around it.
2007-02-14 00:10:21 · answer #4 · answered by morningfoxnorth 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why make it a mirror, a big phosporous screen and we transmitt TV in the form of an eletron stream. Yeah, in 200 years we'd have instant TV LAND and could see big screen retro TV.
In theory yea.
But you'd need a REALLY BIG SCREEN. FAR bigger than the average star!
2007-02-14 02:08:45 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You would be able to see the earth as it existed 200 years before.
You would be looking at yourself as you were 200 years in the past!
2007-02-14 01:12:38 · answer #6 · answered by Billy Butthead 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No,I don't think you comprehend the distance of traveling 186,000 miles per second fo 100 years.
2007-02-14 00:03:56 · answer #7 · answered by southforty1961 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋