Astronomers are able to look through a telescope and see distant stars as they were billions of years ago, so I was wondering, why don’t we sent a telescope up into space say about 100 light years away from the earth so that we can see what was happening 100 year ago?
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Something that has always puzzled me..
- Thread starter AlbionFan
- Start date
brakespear
Doctor Worm
Because by the time it got there 100 years ago would be somewhere in the future and we would already have pretty decent records of what happened (100 light years is a pretty long way to go)?
Hove Lagoonery
Well-known member
- Dec 16, 2008
- 1,039
You are joking, Albion fan? Nobody could really be that dim, surely.
Anyway, to look back at Earth's history, the telescope would have to travel far faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per SECOND). And it would have to be some telescope. Are you getting an idea of the feasability now?
Anyway, to look back at Earth's history, the telescope would have to travel far faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per SECOND). And it would have to be some telescope. Are you getting an idea of the feasability now?
doh , 100 light years , that is the time it takes for light to travel 100 years , i think it takes light 8 mins to travel from the sun to earth so yep its doh :mendoza:
Juan Albion
Chicken Sniffer 3rd Class
Be okay when we master the art of teleporting.
ben andrews' girlfriend
Nurse Laura
Dammit, you beat me!
Juan Albion
Chicken Sniffer 3rd Class
Is Hubble even a light second away?
- Thread starter
- #9
Correct, light does take 8 minutes to reach the earth from the sun and 1.2 seconds from the moon. So in theory it would be possible, just highly improbable. I still love the idea though.
Ooh I like the idea of teleporting, that would solve the distance problem.
Ooh I like the idea of teleporting, that would solve the distance problem.
Billy the Fish
Technocrat
Not as silly as it sounds. The universe isn't flat, so in theory you can travel big distances in a short amount of time by going through a wormhole. Once we work out how to break through the fabric of time and space we'll be sorted 
Apparently they have made a teleporter and tested it on a fly and it came out with it's wing in it's ass
- Thread starter
- #13
Hubble is pointing the wrong way and isn't 100 light years away.
blackprince
New member
- Jul 16, 2007
- 210
A light year is a measure of lenght not time. It is the distance travelled by light in one year and measures approximately 100,000,000,000,000km. To send something 100 light years away it would need to travel 100,000,000,000,000,000km or 75,000,000,000,000,000miles. The fastest rocket was the Saturn V which travelled at 25,000 miles per hour. To reach a distance of 100 light years it would take 3,000,000,000,000 hours or 342 million years.
Hubble isn't a 100 light years from the earth so it doesn't match his criteria. And even if we COULD get a telescope 100 light years away ... it would still take 100 years for the pictures from the telescope to be beamed back to earth so we'd be no better off.
acrossthepond
Active member
I don't think anyone really knows. However, the closer that you get to light speed the more that time slows down.
In theory, at light speed time is stationary in relative terms. This would mean that you could travel an infinite distance at light speed without ageing, even though the process of travelling would in itself take time.
In effect, this implies that you could travel a vast distance through space at light speed and on returning to earth you would be the same age at which you left.
The process of travelling would take time, though you would not age during the process.
You could call this going forward in time as everything you left behind would have aged, and you would not have.
I need a drink, it's too early for this sort of stuff...
So your saying that time ages more than you the more and more you get closer to the speed of light?
That is very confusing especially at 9 o'clock.
If the fasted ever rocket was 25,000 mph, those this mean they were going at 7 miles or so a second?
Cadiz Seagull
Grey bearded old man
Great idea! Maybe we'll be able to see us winning the Charity Shield?