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Seeing stars that dont exist...
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Its a bit of a scary thought (I feel), but it is possible that a lot of the stars that we see at night no longer exist. For those who dont undertsand what I'm talking about, light only ever travels at a constant speed, and most stars are several billion light years away from us (a light year is the theoretical distance light can travel in a year, hence light year) So, in the time it takes for the light from those stars to reach our atmosphere, some of those stars could have blinked out long ago... Likewise, it's possible that there are an equal number of stars that we cannot yet see for the same reason; they are so far away the light hasn't reached us yet!
"There is a reason for having wings that cannot fly, its a precious memory of when you once flew in the sky" -Yukito, Air
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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That really doesnt disturb me,I know it's true so I figure,might as well watch 'em while we still can. Besides,how do we know new ones arent going to just pop up other places?  |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by
on 2005-07-29 14:10:07 |
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new stars do not 'just pop up'. stars are formed by clouds of matter in space which clump together due to the attractive force of gravity. there are nebula in which we see young stars in the process of forming, but this process is far too slow for it to be truly observed in a human lifetime. 
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by
on 2005-08-01 03:09:45 |
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With drango's post in mind, you can see how faster-than-light travel can be described as time travel. If you were at our sun and traveled faster than light to the other side of the milky way and looked back, you would be seeing light from our sun from before you left. Fun brain tickles! |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by
on 2005-08-01 10:15:20 |
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good observation, but is it a paradox? perhaps not, because you would not be interacting with the past, just observing it's light. if it does not cause a paradox, it may just be possible!
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-08-03 18:02:27
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but there is a huge paradox with traveling faster than light, besides the infinte mass and infinite energy required to move such mass, there is the fact that no matter how fast you move light in relation will travel past you at its normal speed, so how can you pass something you cant catch up to.
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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What about gravity? Would the effects of gravity move faster than light? Just out of curiosity. (An impossible example being a black hole fails to exist in one moment. Assuming we could see the hole in the first place, would we observe gravitational shift or would we observe the disapearence of the black hole visually? Less impossible is trying to red shift gravity, using the doppler effect, but I'm not sure that this is physically possible. Would this prove that the speed of light can be exceeded and that through flawed logic, that it does not take infinite energy to accelerate something to the speed of light, but just a ridiuclously large amount?) Near speed of light travel is probably possible by breaking atoms into component parts and sending each of them as waves. That method probably wold kill you though. (Disclaimer. I am a high school student and this is probably covered in university. I did well in physic though.) |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-08-07 19:05:43
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gravity and the four fundemental forces all travel at the same speed.. so light and gravity travel the same
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by
on 2005-08-07 23:38:51 |
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What really bugs me is that all motion, and therefore speed of travel as well, is relative to a point you base it off of. For instance, if a rock is traveling toward earth at half the speed of light, and you fly towars it away from earth at half the speed of light, you could be traveling at the speed of light relative to that rock... Supposedly though, the speed of light cannot be exceeded by any mass or force. |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-08-08 15:01:18
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the speed of light isnt relative, it moves away and toward an object at the same velocity no matter what velocity that said object is moving.. this was einstiens thoery of special relativity
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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Thanks Ericsolazy. That question has been nothering me. Do you happen to know how they discovered this? Thanks in advance. (Sorry for dragging this off topic.) |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by
on 2005-08-08 22:37:04 |
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Yeah, I know, the speed of light isn't relative somehow. That's what I don't get. It hurts my brain... |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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| Looking up into the night sky is really like looking back in time - many if not most of the stars you see no longer exist, and much of the stars that would be visible from Earth are not yet. |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-08-14 12:30:15
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so is watching the history channel
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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OK... I'm about to take the topic I started WAY off topic now... ¬¬ Well... the topic did seem to be heading in this direction anyway... We somehow got onto the subjecct of faster than light travel in collage earlier... I think that it is kinda possible... Just not with our current technology... I heard that light will allways travel at a constant speed.. no matter how fast you are traveling, it makes no difference to the speed of light.. (I'm gonna go with this for the sake of argument) In our disscussion, we came to the conclusion that there are 2 methods of reaching light speed; the fast way, or the slow way. The fast way is somehow managing to go from 0-lightspeed(+) in under 3 seconds... and the slow way being a verry long, and gradual build up in speed, as anything inbetween would eventually kill you with the g-force you would be expeireincing... Also, traveling at such a speed would result in everything in front of you looking either red or blue (cant actualy remember which, but I thing it's blue), looking behind you, you would just see nothing (black) and either side of you (between 90 degrees of forward) you would see some weird warpy effect fading from blue to red and then turning black... ... dont ask me how we got onto the topic being on a computer course, but it was one of our last days, and we were bord... (having nothing to do but wait for stuff to be checked for basic errors) Oh, and the thing about the speed of light not being effected by anything, I think that was his interpretation of Einstien's theory od E=Mc^2 or something.. (or whatever it is..)
"There is a reason for having wings that cannot fly, its a precious memory of when you once flew in the sky" -Yukito, Air
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by EricSoLazy
on 2005-08-17 15:40:04
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the need of infinite engery to reach the speed of light is derived form einstiens thorey of relavity.. its complicated.. maybe one day ill try and sum up in simple terms what relavity encompasses, but im too lazy for that
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by Rukia_chan
on 2005-08-19 23:31:49
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| okay...i dont really get the thing about how to travel light speed in a verry long way, how can it kill u? sorry...i'm juz a juniorhigh...^_^ |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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You need infinite energy to reach the speed of light because the mass of an object increases the faster it goes. That means that if you're moving you're heavier than if you're standing still, but the effect is tiny except at speeds near the speed of light. An object that is moving at the speed of light has infinite mass, and for infinite mass to be accelerated, infinite energy is required. Before anyone asks me for explanations, let me tell you that I don't know the "why" of any of this. What I've just said represents the limits of my understanding. It's very complicated and makes my head hurt.  |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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by stoner4life
on 2005-11-06 19:29:59
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| ( I am about to wander in to the realms of BS) what about tachyons? there was an experiment where something or other was found to have moved 30 times the speed of light. i don't remember much of the discussion but that was the gist of it |
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Re: Seeing stars that dont exist...
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I think tachyon is simply hypothetical; a particle with space-like four-momentum. When if the energy and momentum are real, its rest mass is imaginary, vice versa. But these particles merely impose intruiging problems to modern physics. In fictions however, they are seen as mechanisms to establish faster-than-light communication; with/without reference to causality issues. Stark Trek (Cloaking devices such as ships) Babylon 5 TV series Star Wars series Space Battleship Yamato Tachyons in general: http://physics.gmu.edu/~e-physics/bob/tachyons.htm |
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