OMG I just realized something AMAZING (re: aliens)

[FuSoYa]

It's actually pretty obvious and you all probably know it already, but it never occured to me before now and I have never read it mentioned in correlation with aliens before.

But basically, when you see a planet that is say 10 million light years away, you are actually seeing the planet as it was 10 million years ago. So even if you don't see something on it now, as long as it has the potential to be able to support life in the future/have life evolve there --- it means it may have already evolved and/or something might have inhabited that planet in the meantime! yay!

 

[LuminousAether]

No silly, what you think are planets are simply holes punched in that vast black tapestry that we call "the heavens." Next thing you know you'll tell me the Earth isn't flat and green men don't live on the flip side... hahaha... as if. I mean, we all know about the green men!

 

[Baliset]

i think its an interesting concept.

 

[minxnim]

when you're seeing the projection as it reaches earth (meaning, not through a high powered NASA telescope) indeed, you're seeing it as it was that many light years or whatever... in the distance.
i was just interestingly enough reading something the other day about how the universe is actually quite smaller than anyone ever imagined.
awesome.

 

[Baliset]

toby will be happy that someone put a decent response in his thread.

 

[FuSoYa]

Wouldn't the distance in light years be the same through a telescope too though? I mean, you're not bringing the light closer/shortening the distance, you're just magifying the image, right?

 

[FrostGiant]

Yes, we are seeing a distance past. That's how star wars came about. Also, mars once had the same climate, etc. as earth but as the sun lost some of it's strength, it got cold and died. Earth then cooled off and was able to support life. If the sun weakens enough before simply sparking out, earth will cool off, etc. etc.

 

[xfer]

better thought: right now, there could be alien astronomers 4 billion light-years away going: "aha, look at that interesting solar system! a planet with ice poles that has cities full of intelligent beings...and a primitive lifeless developing planet mass right nearby."

talking about Mars and the Earth...RESPECTIVELY.

 

[FuSoYa]

wow awesome

 

[FuSoYa]

ITT we are in kindergarten

 

[goatschool]

FUSOYA, you mean stars?

 

[FuSoYa]

no dude, planets! they orbit stars.

 

[goatschool]

bUT i gUeSs U MeAnT 4 cOnCePtz

 

[FuSoYa]

I mean in the instance that a planet in a distant solar system happens to get photographed or something, yeah.

 

[FuSoYa]

Incidentally the radiograph images which currently exist would also reflect the same concept, no?

 

[FuSoYa]

I still think this is awesome

 

[goatschool]

i would think so, yeah.

i was just confused by the "you", because i'm upset that i've never seen a planet 10,000,000 LY away.

it would be shattering if we eventually got a satellite there and things were vastly different and fucked up, as far as seeing it in "realtime" as we know it.

it would also be interesting in a fanciful way to consider: what if the way we percieve the light from that distance is in sort of a 'congealed' way, like water droplets, so everything is fractured and things are in physical reality a lot different than how they actually are?

that could apply to something as basic as a sense of scale to even broader concepts, like, diffused light creating something of a moire pattern and what they are seeing is a giant mass of matter broken up into circular or gaseous segments.

junior high level.

 

[goatschool]

it is awesome.

 

[goatschool]

another thing regarding the concept of this thread... goddamn the Fermi Paradox!

 

[FuSoYa]

Fermi Paradox makes sense but is reasonable only on a junior high level in my opinion. It's like so incredibly generalized.