If the telescope was directed at earth and an alien was looking through it does that mean they would be watching the earth 500 years ago? as in if the telescope was so good that it could actually see things happening on the ground and people walking around would they see knights in shining armour and castles and horses etc?
2007-10-21 01:41:43 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Yup, just like that.
When the Hubble telescope is looking into deep space 1.4 billion lightyears away it is looking at something that was there 1.4 billion years ago.
That kind of messes with the hopes of finding intelligent life eh?
If we noticed an intelligent species in space they would likely have been extinct for a very long time already.
2007-10-21 01:50:12 · answer #1 · answered by Y!A-FOOL 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Okay first thing is that light gose through a lot of changes if it has to travel 500 ligh years! So the optical view would be totaly different than the reality....Then again assuming that they are able to extract the rality through it then they will have to take pictures and save them and YES! if they r looking now and r taking pics down the pics will show them the time of 500 years ago that is of knights in shining armour and castles and horses etc.
2007-10-21 08:52:51 · answer #2 · answered by Sushmit M 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's exactly correct. The light that left here 500 years ago would just 'now' be getting to the aliens telescope. That's what 500 light years means. It's the distance that light travels in 500 years.
The further we look into the Universe, the further 'back' we look in time.
Doug
2007-10-21 08:54:18 · answer #3 · answered by doug_donaghue 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In theory yes - the light it's receiving now is light that left the Earth 500 years ago and is just arriving there now.
Likewise if we trained our superscope on THEM, we wouldn't see them looking at us, we'd see whatever it was 500 years ago (unless, of course, they started watching 500+ years ago). The light from there, which is what the telescope shows you, takes 500 years to travel all that way. Short of weird things like worm holes and whatever, there's no getting around that fact of physics.
2007-10-21 08:45:53 · answer #4 · answered by T J 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, it means the alien would be watching the
earth as it was in 1507! 500 light years means that the light fromearth needs 500 years to reach that planet.
2007-10-21 08:47:17 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Exactly...only knights in shining armor occurred well over 500 years ago.
Yes, it is true. Although you can see stars more than half a billion light years away, the light you're seeing actually left the star and headed our way half a billion years ago - which means you're not seeing the star as it actually is right now...it may well have exploded, collapsed in on itself or simply have burnt out long ago.
2007-10-21 08:46:29 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's exactly right. The light from Earth to this alien planet would take 500 years to get there.
Cool concept, huh?
2007-10-21 08:51:33 · answer #7 · answered by artistagent116 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes they will, but since the light from earth will be interfered by light from other star, they will need some kind of interferometer to have that kind of clarity.
Even seeing an extrasolar planet neat its primary star is as hard as seeing a fly near a lighthouse in Egypt from NewYork.
2007-10-21 09:20:51 · answer #8 · answered by seed of eternity 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes, it would take five hundred years for the light to travel from earth to the alien.
2007-10-21 08:45:29 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes Sir , Reference of Infra-Red Vision will give Answer to you . They can see as alive as ourselves .
2007-10-21 08:46:17 · answer #10 · answered by Naaraayanan 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋