you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 92 points 1 year ago (22 children)

But only after 10 years. You couldn't see anything that wasn't visible from the viewpoint of the mirror beforehand, as from earth's point of view the mirror isn't there yet. And if you're there anyway… you can just look at Earth with the craft that's on the position of the mirror already.

  • source
  • hideshow 22 child comments
  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago* (13 children)

    That's why we need to find a natural mirror somewhere already out there, so we can see into our past. Something like a planet made of pure mercury, or an arrangement of blackholes doing gravitational lensing that bends our light back to us, or whatever. We'd also need instruments vastly superior than what we currently have in order to get any useful information out of seeing our own light bounced back to us from so far away

    ... But still! the idea that it's at least hypothetically possible to actually see our own past is very exciting!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Just look in any mirror. What you see is also you in the past.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    “‘That’s a picture of me when I was younger.’ Yeah, no shit. Every picture of you is a picture of you when you were younger.”

    -Mitch Hedberg

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    He didn't curse in that line. In fact he didn't curse much generally. I don't have any objection to curse words, it just doesn't sound like his voice when you add curse words in.

    Fuck shit ass titties. I just had to get that out after talking about not cursing

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'm assuming the inverse square law would hinder us from seeing anything useful. But now I'm imagining scientists being ecstatic about discovering a foreign signal, only to realise its us from the past

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    That's highly unlikely basically because of the inverse square law. Even tightly focused beams dissipate quite effectively over light-hours, let alone light years. We'd be lucky to catch a single photon from our past selves over any significant distance.

    For reference, look up how weak the signal is even just coming back from the moon when people try to hit the retroreflectors with lasers. Or how crazy weak the signals are when they reach Voyager.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Only after 20 years. Light will take 10y to make it from earth to the mirror, and 10y to travel back.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)