Astronomists, is it possible for this to happen?

Question

I was wondering earlier, could light have left our star or planet, traveled out into space, pass very close to a heavy object, slingshot around it, and head back to Earth where we could see it? Wouldn't be like we were looking back in time?

Answer 1

No it is not possible to happen accidentally,
But if you could maneuver black holes or stars then you could create the experiment. Talk to me in a few thousand years and we might have the ability to do something like that.

Of course if you could just travel out 50 light years and look back then you would be seeing the Earth as it was 50 years ago. Of course with a simple telescope, no matter how powerful there would be a limit to the detail that you can see. We can't see planets around other star systems because of the limits of our optics. It would take a drastic improvement of our optics to see anything at that range.

However, we would be receiving radio and TV signals that were broadcast 50 years ago so we would have a clear idea of what was being reported 50 years ago. Dinosaurs didn't have that technology though so seeing them would be a lot tougher.

I don't know if you can get a resolution large enough to pick out individual planets at that range. The limit is the size of the mirror, the image processing technology, and how the image is processed since it would be hard to see something as huge as a planet.

If you could put an observer and a set of telescopic mirrors and lens that are miles in diameter then you could see a whole lot more. Of course the atmosphere would cause distortion making it harder to see things. That's why the Hubble is the best telescope we have. If we could launch one with a 100 foot mirror then we might have the resolution to pick up good images of Pluto, currently the Hubble sees only a dot four pixels wide. That's why the New Horizons Spacecraft is on its way to Pluto to study it.

When we look at the stars and galaxies in space we are seeing back in time. You understand that, I am sure. You probably know that the Andromeda Galaxy, our closest neighbor is about 300 light years away so the light coming that we are seeing know left that galaxy before Christopher Columbus left Spain for the New World.

Your experiment would use black holes or stars to bend light with gravity and to cause it to circle back to the earth. This would take precision placement of the black holes to bend the light enough and it would take hundreds of black holes to do it. If we tried to use the mass of stars or galaxies then the distance the light would have to travel would be too great for us to see anything. Your “time telescope” would require a ring of black holes or at least a 3/4 arc to bend the light exactly back into your receiving telescope. Clearly, you wouldn’t want to do this experiment anywhere near the Earth where an accident would destroy it. You would probably want to use quantum black holes; artificially generated black holes that are man made and are currently only theoretical. Do that and you could create your “time telescope.” A very interesting idea, it can’t happen naturally, but if we wanted to truly see our past it would be the best way to do it. As long as your telescope was huge enough to be able to have the resolution to see something as tiny as the earth the idea would work. Just don’t hold your breath for anyone to try and do it.

Answer 2

Though that isn't very probable, it could theoretically happen. Light is often sling-shot around black holes and flung into space.

Also, whenever you're looking at something, you are looking back in time. It takes light 8.5 minutes to reach Earth from the sun, so you are looking at the sun as it was 8.5 minutes ago. Looking at stars in the night sky shows them thousands if not millions of years ago, as it takes light a long time to travel to earth. Even looking at your friend next to you, or anything in the room, you will be looking at how they were hundredth/thousandth of nanoseconds ago (of course that's too short to tell). So if you think about it, you are always looking into the past.

Answer 3

Just a correction to Dan's answer- The distance to Andromeda is 2.52 million light years NOT 300 light years ! The north star Polaris is further away than 300 light years. Also, Dan PLEASE try to confine your answers to the parameters of the question and avoid going on your uninformed tangents.

The question requires light waves to make a 180 degree arc. Since light waves travel on a magnetic line, I don't believe it to be possible. The reference to 'looking back in time' is misleading. In your hypothesis, the light rays bent by such a gravitational force would be so scattered they would be hard to detect. One can't imagine that to be looking back in time. One certainly would not see a star (assuming that was the source).

Answer 4

Even if the "Andromeda is 300 miles away" held up, it would still not be light from before Chris Columbous left spain. Off hand I dont know when he left, but lets say 1492.

1492 + 300 = 1792. It does NOT equal 2007.

What I'm trying to say is that an overly long explanation doesn't mean the stuff that's in it is true.

Answer 5

The light would certainly be refracted by a gravitational field, but the physics of electromagnetic radiation (and light is electromagnetic) shows that the angle would not be 180 degress (it wouldn't "slingshot).
The strongest gravitational field we know of is in the vicinity of a black hole, but even that would only bend the light around it and the light would keep going, possibly in a different direction.

Answer 6

The problem here is not so much can anything bend light to that extent, but the light would be too dissipated travelling all that distance for us to make anything of it.

A much simpler way to see history is to record events on film and play it back later. Simple.

Answer 7

Nice question.
I know that massive objects can 'bend' light, but as to if they could change its direction pi radians, who knows...
I would comfortably say that the chances of it happening would be minimal if any. If it did, the chance of a single photon being sent exactly back to earth would be phenomenal.

Answer 8

Theoretically, but it would have to be a black hole. And the light would spread out so much that only a tiny tiny fraction would head back toward us. Then it would be so dim by the time it reached our atmosphere we couldn't even see it. And even if we could, we wouldn't be able to recognize what it was.

Answer 9

Yes. The light would bounce back from the outer containment boundary of the Universe. Whether it would miss the earth or not is something that would follow a probability function.

Answer 10

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