[PeaceBeWithYou]

I always thought that if there was a distant planet of a distant star (say 10,000 light-years away), and this planet had a highly reflective surface, and we had a really super telescope, we could see the reflection of the earth as it was 20,000 years ago.

I hate to be the "fly in your soup" so to speak, but viewing the light of a reflected image would show you the present, because it took that light 20,000 years to make the round trip. A telescope only allows us to look into the past when viewing light directly from or close to the source of that light. Now, if you could find a way to accelerate the reflected light, then your concept is feasible.

I've been checking daily for the new images to start pouring in when the new optics in the Hubble get cranked up, there is no telling what we will see and learn from that, and it should be any day now.

[Lancey Howard]

I hate to be the "fly in your soup" so to speak, but viewing the light of a reflected image would show you the present, because it took that light 20,000 years to make the round trip.

No. Either I wasn't clear or your thinking is flawed.
It would take 1,000 years for the light from earth to reach the reflective surface on a distant planet (which is 1,000 light-years away). It would then take that same light 1,000 years to be "reflected" back to earth - - and this is obviously the same light which would then enter the lens of the telescope. Making the image (of long-ago earth) presented by that light 2,000 years old. Hence, it would be a "picture" of earth as it was 2,000 years ago.
No "fly in the soup" here.

Regards,
LH

[Lancey Howard]

By the way, it's all pretty speculative anyway, since the disbursement of photons (and the effects of gravitational yanks from various celestial bodies) over that distance would likely render any image pretty fuzzy anyway, to say the least.

But thinking is fun, and ladies, it does not give you wrinkles.