Sun and time

[midgetwars]

IS it true that the sun is actually 7-8min behind it's true movement when we look at it from earth?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes, it takes sunlight about eight minutes to reach Earth, so what we see is "delayed" eight minutes.

[midgetwars]

cool, so what if we look in to a telescope with 4.6billion yrs away?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

We see light that's taken billions of light years to get here. We see the object as it was billions of light years ago.

[midgetwars]

so wouldn't we be able to see the big bang?

[Leader Bee]

not necessarily,

 

The big bang wasn't an explosion as such and more of an expansion of space, from what i've learned recently anyway. This thread and many others on SFN explain this to some degree:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=47888&page=4

[swansont]

so wouldn't we be able to see the big bang?

 

The universe was opaque until some time later than that, which is the earliest we could possibly see.

[michel123456]

cool, so what if we look in to a telescope with 4.6billion yrs away?

 

At the time you'll do that, I will do the same from the other side of the Earth.

And I will also see galaxies 4,6 billions Light-Years away from us, but not the same as you do. Yours & mine galaxies will be distanced from each other 4,6 + 4,6 billions = 9,2 billions LY, at a time just after the Big Bang.

Easy.

[Law]

Yes, it takes sunlight about eight minutes to reach Earth, so what we see is "delayed" eight minutes.

 

so if there was an intelligent alien world looking at earth from billions of lightyears away and we left today to go there on course at lightspeed (or closest to lightspeed) what would they see when we arrived?? would they just see the ship leaving earth as we physically arrived to their planet?

[Kyrisch]

From the alien's point of view, it would take a near-infinite amount of time for you to reach it due to time dilation at near-lightspeeds, so that discrepancy would not occur.