Can astronomers see into the past? With a big enough telescope, could they see how life on earth began?

Question

I know that because of light years, what we see in the stars are actually just images of things that don't exist anymore...so if someone were to keep watching the sky, wouldn't they eventually see something that existed when our galaxy began...and what if that something were able to travel 1000 times the speed of light...it would arrive in our past....right? So for a short time, we would see our creator...whether it were God or Aliens or some other thing (asteroids, etc)....or am I way off? It just kinda popped in my head and I don't know enough about astronomy to truly understand, but maybe someone else does? I saw an ad for this green gas-like thing found in space that existed like 100,000 years ago and scientists don't understand it so I couldn't help but wonder if it had any relation to us. I'm just saying, Perhaps it is a form of life dust. ha. I don't know, and they can't exactly touch it to test it....but it got me thinking. Even if the green gas is nothing, the idea that we might find something from our own past, still tickles my curiosity.

Answer 1

well, no. because most of the universe is black, because no light has reached there. we can see only the 'visible universe' that the light had reflected back from.

Answer 2

Yes and no.  Astronomers can see into the past, but not into earth's past.  However far you want to look into the past, you have to look that far away.  If you want to see 10 years into the past, then you have to look 10 light years away.  So we can never see into earth's past because we're at earth.

Now, if there happened to be an alien astronomer sitting on a planet 3 billion light years away, and he had a REALLY good scope, and he had it pointing in the right direction, he could see life begin on earth.  But he couldn't see life begin on his own planet.  Likewise, we can look out and see life begin on other planets (if it exists on other planets) but not our own.

We are nearly able to see back to the beginning of the universe, but there's a limit of about 400,000 years after the beginning that we'll never be able to see past.

Answer 3

Astronomers can see into the past because the light that's arriving at Earth is OLD...it took a long time to reach here, coming from other parts of the universe.

To see ancient Earth light, you'd have to be very far from earth, and have a VERY good telescope, since Earth is not a star, and not very bright.  

Answer 4

no. because whatever created us (god, asteroids, w/e) already passed. what people in the past have seen would be compeletly different from what we see now (think of it this way, we can't see what created us, because if we did, it would create us again)

Answer 5

Astronomers are always seeing into the past.  When ever we look out into space to stars that are 10s, hundreds or thousands of light  years away we are seeing them as they were then.  Nothing can travel faster than light so your question about going 1000 times faster than light is nonsense.  What could be possible would be to observe a distant planetary system on which life was just evolving.  However, there are no telescopes powerful enough at this time to do this.  Perhaps in the future.

Answer 6

i think it would pass us by so quickly that we couldnt even comprehend it.

and there's something else telling me that, no its not likely........but everything is possible.

Answer 7

IF light did allow you to see the past, and you wanted to see something that happened just 10 years ago in the past, you would have to travel instantaneously 10 light years from earth and set up your telescope in order to see it.  at 186,000 miles per second multiplied out to years, you would have to go 586,569,600,000,000 miles INSTANTLY to see that light, otherwise you would have to add your travel time on top of that mileage....and that's just for 10 years

to travel a billion light years out to see the beginning of life on earth...

Answer 8

Astronomers see into the past in the sense that light takes time to travel. Hecne, the stars we see in the sky are images from 100,000 years ago and often times many more.

However, unless there is a very very large mirror out there, or we invent faster than light travel (both probably impossible) than we cannot see earths past since the light is traveling away from us.

Answer 9

Assume 2 things -

1- you had a HUGE telescope or some cool teck etc etc

2- you could go anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye

Then YES you could see what was on earth in the past - the whole thing is to move faster than light the farther away from earth you got the older the light is ,, but this would only tell you certain things like the atmosphere and other physical properties - cause if you are looking at the earth thru a telecope your seeing in real time and would not be able to see dinosaurs so to speak - but here is the paradox if you jump a mllion light years away and look at the earth the light your seeing is a million years old,, soo then again why cant you see that dinosaur ?

Answer 10

Interesting question. However, to see our own past, we would have to be a longggggggggggggg ways away from our own sun.

Also, for those who do not beleive we are seeing into the past, did u know the suns' light takes 8 minutes to reach us?? So when u look at the sun, u are looking 8 minutes into the past.

Answer 11

I do not believe that we are seeing the past when these star lights reaches us. You know why?

Here's my question to you.... "If a blackout does occur, does it also imply that time stopped because light is absent?"

of course no. light is not a carrier of images. Light only allows life to visually experience the happenstance of everything that did.