Is it possible to see the stars ?? Time-question!!!

Hello there, I was wondering something:

When we look at the stars the light we se are at least some years old, a teacher in the small classes once told us that some of the stars was hundered years old. I mean they could have died and it took the light so many years to come here.
I read in a post about timetraveling that the light from the sun is a few minutes away.

If we look in a telescope and look at a specific star it doesn't have to exist ??? I don't really get it, how can we look at something that doen't exist. Would the star we see in the telescope be at exact same spot as when it send out the light ???
Or would it look like it has comed closer, so it is only a halucination we look at in the light???
Or can we at all see the stars if we could zoom in???


Lets say that an explosion happens on earth. A few minutes after we would see it on earth.... Right ???
What if we look in a telescope and an explosion happens would it then be an explosion that happened 4 minutes ago or just now ???

If it, in the telescope is happening "right now" we could warn ourself so that in a few minutes we would see an explosion, wouldn't that to be looking into the future ???

Then I come to think about all this with time and stuff, where is time specified ??? Is it on earth or in the middle of our galaxy or is it in the middle of the universe ??? Where does time start ?

Weird.. See you all. I would be interested in cool links about time and stuff if you got some.

-Quane
Cya

Light takes time to travel through space, just like sound takes time to travel through the atmosphere. It's basically like when you see a flash of lightning but don't hear the thunder until a few seconds later. The light we see from the sun takes about 8 minutes to reach the earth. The light we see from stars is even older, because of the time it takes to travel from the star to Earth. Light from some objects, like quasars, can be billions of years old before it reaches our planet.

What if a star is moving towards the earth? Eventually two stars may be seen for a split second when the speed of the light and the speed of the past light meet up. But yeah, no matter how you try to view the light, it is in the past. Even objects close to us, we are seeing nanoseconds in the past.

Stars do not move towards the Earth at or above the speed of light.

I suggest Space.com. They have all kinds of information.

www.space.com...

doesn't have to be a star. A simple astroid or any other object will do.

The first thing you must learn is that there is NO universal time. We all carry our own times with us in effect.
Read Me

If a light source is moving towards or away from the observer the light will experience a doppler shift; light is the same velocity no matter what(a constant)
Read Me

Here's an interesting site on the theory of absolute space-time.

www.absolute-space-time.net...

Stars coming towards earth, has a light shift to the RED spectrum. If the star was going away from earth, it would shift to blue.

I think our friend here simply isn't comprehending distance in space....

Did you know that when you look at the sun, you are actually seeing light minutes old (I think like 8 1/2 or 9 1/2 minutes, something like that)....???

The NEAREST star is light years away.... Think about it...with a light year being the distance light travels in a YEAR! The Sun is about 93 million miles from the Earth (again, from memory, so forgive any off miles there...) and that's a few minutes for light. So, if it took years??? When we look at the sky, we're only seeing the light from those stars, not the stars themselves.... Many of them may not even physically exist anymore, but the light from them just got here....

Think of it as a letter. An elderly woman writes a letter to her son, puts it in the post office, then dies that night. Her son gets a letter in two days. How does a dead woman send a letter? You see?

When you see ANYTHING, it's just your brain interpreting light signals. For all we know, the sky is really red, but the human eye sees it as blue, hehe... You see, I'm color blind, and a friend of mine has a grey dog. However to me, it's a green dog! I swear to God, that dog looks hunter green to me! Now I know it isn't really green, but it damn sure looks it to me!

Originally posted by Gazrok
I think our friend here simply isn't comprehending distance in space....

Did you know that when you look at the sun, you are actually seeing light minutes old (I think like 8 1/2 or 9 1/2 minutes, something like that)....???

The NEAREST star is light years away.... Think about it...with a light year being the distance light travels in a YEAR! The Sun is about 93 million miles from the Earth (again, from memory, so forgive any off miles there...) and that's a few minutes for light.

All of the above is ture, and close enough.

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by SpittinCobra]

Some light from the farthest stars takes billions of years for us to see. Sure we see the light but from billions of years ago. Pretty weird when you think about it.

Originally posted by worshipthemoon
Light takes time to travel through space, just like sound takes time to travel through the atmosphere. It's basically like when you see a flash of lightning but don't hear the thunder until a few seconds later. The light we see from the sun takes about 8 minutes to reach the earth. The light we see from stars is even older, because of the time it takes to travel from the star to Earth. Light from some objects, like quasars, can be billions of years old before it reaches our planet.

Yes exactly. If you see something exploding through a telescope, and you dont see it on Earth yet you will see it later on about like 10 seconds later or even fewer than that. Light takes time to travel. Its not like its just there it has to travel, even if it is at an enormusly fast speed.

Originally posted by Laxpla
Stars coming towards earth, has a light shift to the RED spectrum. If the star was going away from earth, it would shift to blue.

Other way around. If moving away from earth, it dopler effects to red. If moving toward us, blue.

The vast majority of stars outside the milkyway are moving away from us. A good number in the milkyway are too.

This effect is predominantly caused by space itself expanding rather than the stars moving through that space

Originally posted by worshipthemoon
Here's an interesting site on the theory of absolute space-time.

www.absolute-space-time.net...

Funny theory, especially because relativity is one of the most tested theories ever. How can you explain mass increase of particles in particle accelerators with absolute spacetime? How can you explain time dilation of the muons created by cosmic radiation with absolute spacetime? I'll admit I didn't read that whole, but the fact that there is only one equation for about every 7 paragraphs usually means it's not such a good theory.

Oh, and I agree with the answers to the questions asked in the first post.

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by amantine]

Originally posted by Quane
If we look in a telescope and look at a specific star it doesn't have to exist ??? I don't really get it, how can we look at something that doen't exist.

Look at it like this. If you dropped a stone in a puddle the ripples would propagate outward from the stones impact point. You could view the ripple approaching the edge of the puddle but the stone would have disappeared long ago. It�s the same thing with a star. The star sent out a ripple, it just took time for it to reach the edge of the puddle.

You can't ever really see something as it is. You can only see the light it gave off at that point in time
(time used as a measurement of intervals here) and never see it as it is now.

When u see a star you know that its not whats happening now, but would it really matter, as the effects of what happened to that star, wouldn't reach you faster than what you see happening.

So light basically has no end........? Just a weird thought that came to mind while reading this. If we can see a light 14 billion years old from here then that light would have had to exist for that entire time.

Originally posted by amantine

Originally posted by worshipthemoon
Here's an interesting site on the theory of absolute space-time.

www.absolute-space-time.net...

Funny theory, especially because relativity is one of the most tested theories ever. How can you explain mass increase of particles in particle accelerators with absolute spacetime? How can you explain time dilation of the muons created by cosmic radiation with absolute spacetime? I'll admit I didn't read that whole, but the fact that there is only one equation for about every 7 paragraphs usually means it's not such a good theory.

[Edited on 3-4-2004 by amantine]

I don't know how sound the theory is. However, I believe it's good that people don't always accept what others claim as truth, and formulate new ideas. Some may be proven wrong, but in the process of challenging old "truths" new ones may be found. I do disagree with some of his ideas.

He states, "The force of gravitation is not the result of the curvature of absolute S/T." I believe the curvature of space-time is the result of gravity, not gravity the result of the curvature, and that space is 3rd dimension, time is 4th dimension, and gravity may be 5th dimension which causes the other dimensions to warp where they are intertwined. I also think that to properly visualise the effect of gravity on space-time it should be referred to as "collapsed" instead of "curved".

no mass gives gravity and curves space time. wtf?

I know that an object's mass causes gravity. I was agreeing with his statement that "The force of gravitation is NOT the result of the curvature of absolute S/T." It is the force that CAUSES the curvature of space-time.