Faster-Than-Light Objects
By: Grant Adams
Think of someone throwing a baseball through the air, directly at you. You see the ball leave their hand and travel towards you. This is because the light waves from the ball when it is farthest away reach you first, then the light waves from a second later reach you a second later, and this continues until you get all the images of the ball traveling towards you. However, imagine the ball was traveling at twice the speed of light(with no outside forces acting upon it) and you were 8 light years away from the thrower. At point A, 8 light years away, light waves start racing towards you. They will take 8 years to get to you. At point B, when the ball is only 4 light years away from you, more light waves will head your way, and they will take only 4 years to reach you, whereas the light waves from Point A are still 6 light years away. At point C, when the ball is 2 light years away from you,,it will take the light waves from that point only 2 years to reach you, however the waves from Point A are still 5 years away, and the waves from Point B are still 3 years away. Finally, when you catch the ball, you will see it almost instantly. Then, about 1 year later you will see the ball at Point C, 2 years later you will see it at Point B, and 4 years later you will see it at Point A! This means that if a faster-than-light object is moving directly at you, you will not see it until it reaches you, and after it reaches you, you will see it moving away from you.
This concept can also be applied to faster-than-sound objects. If you take the above example, but instead imagine the ball is moving at twice the speed of sound and is making a loud noise that can be heard from very far away, if it were headed directly at you, you would not hear it until it reached you, and then you would hear it moving away from you.
