To: bruinbirdman
Ok, I am a moron.
How in the hell do they peer back in time???
Totally amazed at our knowledge and abilities. Still no cure for cancer.
4 posted on
08/19/2009 7:27:33 PM PDT by
autumnraine
(You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out!)
To: autumnraine
See the sun in the sky? You’re seeing it how it was 8 minutes ago. Now extrapolate that out to something like the Hubble, peering into the far reaches of the universe...
To: autumnraine
They are only ‘figuratively’ looking back in time. They are analyzing information that would only be reaching the earth after x amount of time, even though it is information generated millionsnof years ago. Remember, even light, the fastest thing we know, only travels at about 385,000 miles per second (I ting - I'm digging back in time in my own memory of high school history class), so with the known universe at least billions of miles across,even light doesn't cross it instantaneously - and other things, like gravity waves, travel a lot slower than the speed of light!
8 posted on
08/19/2009 7:32:55 PM PDT by
Kay Ludlow
(Government actions ALWAYS have unintended consequences...)
To: autumnraine
When you look at a star in the sky you may be “seeing” what that star looked like millions of years ago if that star happens to be millions of light-years from earth. Similarly, these scientists are “looking” in areas of the sky (the universe) thought to be furthest from earth. Theat’s how they “peer back in time”.
What I’ve always wondered is, if scientists could “peer back in time” to one nanosecond into the existence of the universe and discovered a mirrored surface which was perfectly aligned toward the scientists, what would that mirror be reflecting?
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