What's the minimum furthest distance an observer needs to be from an object in order to view it 'in the past'?

Question

in the same way that the sun is seen from earth as it was 8 minutes ago

Answer 1

Well, anything you look at you are looking at in the past as although light travels at an incredible speed, it still takes time (albeit not very much) to get from the object to your eyes.

So technically, you could be right next to something and you're viewing it as it was a billionth of a millisecond ago or something.

If you're wondering how far you'd have to be before you get into recognisable time such as a full second then you need someone who has a brilliant understanding of maths, physics etc and I'm afraid I'm not that person.

Answer 2

the "minimum furthest" distance ??? one or the other please.

Anyway - light travels at a very fast but finite speed (approx 300,00 km/sec) so you're seeing everything "in the past"

Next closest star - 4.5 years

Earth to Sun 93m miles - 8 minutes

12m miles - about 1 minute

how far in the past do you want to see?

Answer 3

It's the length of Planck's quantum effect.

Answer 4

Look at the Andromeda galaxy through a telescope or binocs and you are looking 2.5 million years into the past.

Answer 5

depends how precisely you can measure time.  100th mm?

ignore me go for a1

Answer 6

Pretty much one wavelength of light !

Which is an intensely small distance