speed of light

[ob]

I know that the speed of light is somewhere in the neighborhood of 186,000 miles per second.So,if you are viewing the night sky on a clear night that you could possibly be looking at a star that is say,1000 light years away.That would mean that the light of the star that you are seeing was produced 1000 years ago.<br /><br />That said,my question is,do astronomers know of any stars that have nova'd ,yet on Earth we are still seeing the light from when it was whole?I've always wondered that.It's mind boggling enough to think that you are actually looking back into time when viewing the light of a star anyway.Sometimes way back into time.Are we seeing any stars that simply aren't there anymore?<br /><br />If you had a viewing telescope that was capable of seeing a person on the surface of a planet that was 1000 light years away,would you be looking 1000 years back in time,or would you be viewing real time?

 

[lark2004]

Re: speed of light

I think that what you would be seeing, would have happened 1000 years ago.

 

[12Footer]

Re: speed of light

Yes, the nova will have happened 1000years ago. It has allways facinated me too. When you look up into the night sky, you are literally looking back into time!<br />If you could see that person on the other world, (which was 1000lightyears away), that person would be 1000years older than you.

 

[beezee28]

Re: speed of light

Any time you look into the dark blue yonder. You are looking back in time and will always wonder about the Big Bang theory.

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: speed of light

So does that mean, that when I see my little buddies, they have already been here and gone, or they have not got here yet?

 

[Bondo]

Re: speed of light

So does that mean, that when I see my little buddies, they have already been here and gone, or they have not got here yet?

I Think that would depend on whether you're seeing their Faces,<br />Or,<br />They're Backsides........................

 

[Stratosfied]

Re: speed of light

It is correct that if you could see a person on a planet 1000 light years away, it would be the person 1000 years ago. Kinda makes ya feel small.

 

[dolluper]

Re: speed of light

We all are looking back in time <br /> "REMEMBER WHEN"

 

[briannh1234]

Re: speed of light

To answer the original question: I don't thinks scientists would have any indication of something novaing that we could still see as a star. If a star has novaed the first indication would be 1000 year's later when the light arrived.<br /><br />Just an opinion - I'm not a scientist.<br />- Brian

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: speed of light

So what are we seeing when we see a star?<br />Something that is novaing or what?<br /><br />What about a shooting star?<br />Is that one that was coming this way and just ran out of gas, or did it nova?

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: speed of light

Originally posted by Bondo:<br />

So does that mean, that when I see my little buddies, they have already been here and gone, or they have not got here yet?

I Think that would depend on whether you're seeing their Faces,<br />Or,<br />They're Backsides........................

Well if they have already been here and gone, that would explain why they are so dang ugly then.<br />Another mystery solved.

 

[gaugeguy]

Re: speed of light

I saw a show a while ago and it said the farthest light emitting object that can be seen from earth is like 20 billion light years away. That means the light we see started its journey 20 billion years ago...just blows me away thinking about it.<br /><br />I just did some quick calculations, a light year is almost 6 trillion miles. Multiply that by 20 billion...dang that is a long road trip man.

 

[SoulWinner]

Re: speed of light

The only way anyone on Earth would know if a star went nova, super nova, or collapsed into a black hole would be from observation of the event, so the answer is: No, we don't know if any of the stars we see in the night sky are still in existance as we see them, when we see them.

 

[PatPatterson]

Re: speed of light

Originally posted by SBN:<br /> So what are we seeing when we see a star?<br />Something that is novaing or what?

When we see a star, we are seeing a sun that is so far away it is only a dot of light. If you were the same distance from it as we are from sol, and it is the same size, you'd see it like the sun.<br /><br />

Originally posted by SBN:<br /><br />What about a shooting star?<br />Is that one that was coming this way and just ran out of gas, or did it nova?

A shooting star is usually a particulate of something, (a rock, a pebble, a piece of the space junk that is orbiting the earth..etc) sometimes very small, sometimes larger, that has hit our atmosphere, and is burning up.

 

[WillyBWright]

Re: speed of light

There are subparticles that travel faster than the speed of light. Supernova cause certain signatures of those particles and they can be measured similar to spectral analysis. That area of astronomy has alot of discovery in it's future. I believe we have the technology to predict a supernova, but need to find one first. It will still be years to eons after the thing actually blew, but those particles should get here before visible light.<br /><br />I'll see what I can find, but I recall the discovery of a stellar cloud that could've been a star that supernova'd about the time of the birth of Jesus. It's been speculated for a long time that the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova.

 

[JB]

Re: speed of light

Time and space are the same, just as energy and matter are the same. Einstein's theory of general relativity.<br /><br />When we observe light from a body over 5 billion light years away, we are seeing light emitted before the earth was formed. <br /><br />Charged particles occasionally exceed the speed of light in the medium they are passing through but not the speed of light in space. They generate shock waves at light frequencies known as Cherenkov radiation. That is the purplish glow seen in shielding water around a reactor. According to Einstein, a particle exceeding the speed of light in space would be converted to energy photons at the speed of light.

 

[spratt]

Re: speed of light

A day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day...hmmmmm

 

[Stratosfied]

Re: speed of light

Yeah, what JB said!

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: speed of light

This stuff just blows my mind away to think about it.<br /><br />So what your saying is that if I made a trip to the big dipper, it would be empty when I got there?

 

[SoulWinner]

Re: speed of light

Everyone should read Steven Hawkings book "A Brief History of Time"