A Questioning Thought for the Day

[ngauger]

Just to put this into perspective, the Speed of light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles a second or 700 million miles an hour. The space shuttle only travels at about 5 miles per second or 17,500 mph. To put THAT into perspective, next time your in your car, note how long it takes you to drive 5 miles and then realize, the space shuttle can do that in 1 second.

From a scientific point of view, light from the nearest star, other than the sun, (Proxima Centauri), takes four and a half years to get here. Thus, when you look up into the sky at night, none of those stars you see are there anymore. It's a direct window into the past. How's that to boggle the brain?

Only because I have a peeve about details being correct... That should be "Some" of the stars are not there anymore.....

the younger stars are still there, but yes, not very many. They have been replaced by newer stars, our scientists gather, but again - since their light has not reached us yet, we can't be sure...

I was taught this way.... If a train is running on a infinite straight line (Galaxy Express999) It's headlight (or mars light) will cast a straight line of light.

As it leaves the Earth the light leaves too (186,000 mps)

The light would not be "seen" on Proxima Centauri for 4 and a half years. Now, this means, that if a train was traveling near the speed of light, before it lost it's mass... The light leaving the flash light inside would visibly slow, because our scientists have proven that the speed is constant and never changing no matter "where" the light is or how fast it's going.... In other words, the person holding the flashlight would "catch up to the light " when it it first turned on. After that - the "beam" would be a solid beam as if you turned one on standing on the Earth at night.

Taking this further, Some of the stars we're seeing with the Hubble telescope are actually gone now, but since the "Supernova" section of the light has not reached us yet, we see only the "younger" normal light. That is what makes this all so interesting.

Someone looking back to us from somewhere else.. Is "seeing" the Earth when the Egyptians were building the pyramids... Or hearing news of the Wright brothers flying their plane.. and of course, the most used one... The TV broadcasts of Hitler......

It's all in how far away they are and how sensitive their radio telescopes are... and timing is everything...