How does the Hubble space telescope see in the past?

Answer 1

Look in the Mirroryes. The time it takes the light to reach the Hubble telescope from the object it is viewing is how far back in time it is seeing. When you look up at the stars you are also looking back in time. If a star is 10 light years away you are seeing the star as it appeared 10 years ago. The time it takes the light to travel to your eyes.

Food for thought: If you could see your reflection in a mirror that was placed 1 light year away you would be looking at yourself as you appeared two years ago. The time it takes the light to trave to, and from the mirror. The next time you look into a mirror keep in mind that you are looking back in time. The further away the mirror, the further back in time.

Answer 2

A telescope can see back in time because of how far stars are. Stars are light years away, so it takes light years for the light to get to earth. The light you are seeing from a star outside was light that it gave off years ago. If a star died, we wouldn't be able to tell until years after, because we would still see the light until the time of the stars death reached us. Only then would we see it die, even though it had died years ago.

Answer 3

Light travels at a limited speed. The further it travels the longer it takes to get

somewhere. The light HST receives from extremely distant objects was created

extremely long ago, and has taken that time to get here.

Here's an easy way to think about it:

You get a letter in the mail from a friend. In the letter, he writes "It's raining here today."

Is it raining at his house when you read the letter ? Probably not. You know that some time

has passed since he wrote the letter. Even though his letter says "today", that doesn't mean

"right now", because time has passed since he wrote it.

Same with stars.

Answer 4

Of course. So can you, and you don't even need a telescope. Just go outside

and look at something in the sky. It takes time for light to get from one place

to another place. Whatever you're looking at, the light that's entering your eye

left the object some time earlier. It might have been a short time ago or a long

time ago. But whatever you're looking at, you're not seeing it exactly NOW.

You're seeing it as it was when the light you're seeing left the object.

Here are a few objects, and the delay between the time the light leaves them

and the time the same light reaches your eyes:

• the Moon . . . . . about 11/4 seconds
• Mars, when it's as close to Earth as it can ever get . . . about 4 minutes
• the Sun . . . . . about 81/3 minutes
• Jupiter, when it's as close to Earth as it can ever get . . . about 35 minutes
• Alpha Centauri, the nearest star outside our solar system . . . about 4.2 years
• Polaris (the "North Star") . . . . . 323 years
• M31 (the "Andromeda Galaxy", the farthest thing you can see without a telescope . . . about 21/2million years
• the refrigerator at the other end of the kitchen, 12 feet away . . . 0.0000000122 second
• a passenger airliner, flying 35,000 feet above you . . . 0.0000356 second

If the North Star exploded on the day George Washington was born, we won't

know about it until we see it in the year 2055.

Answer 5

no