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When you see a star that is 300 million light years away you are seeing it as it WAS 300 million years ago.?

My question is if we do observe life on another planet from a high powered telescope or such instrument would be not seeing a life form of the past?

7 Answers

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Only in the vaguest sense, because you have several incorrect assumptions. First, you can't actrually SEE any stars that far away. All we see is the combined light of millions or billions of stars in a galaxy, no individual stars. Secondly, there is no telescope on Earth large enough to resolve the disk of any star other than Betelgeuse, let alone a planet revolving around a star.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    The time delay is right - we see it as it was 300 million years ago. (with no corrections for Red Shift) (there should be a small correction at that distance).

    There is no way to get the resolution at that distance to see anything much other than an image of the star.

  • Mark G
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Yes

  • 7 years ago

    You're correct. For example, we see the Andromeda galaxy *as it was* 2.2 million years ago.

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  • 7 years ago

    Yes because of the time it takes for light to reach us.

  • 7 years ago

    yep, and guess how many years for us to invent wheels to an electric sports car

  • 7 years ago

    What would our sun look like from Betelgeuse...........

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