- I is that I want is to see the real battle of Thermopylae?
- See the Battle of Thermopylae?
- Yeah, you know, the film "300." That the Spartans, led by Leonidas, against Persians, with Xerxes I at the helm.
- But I do not understand ...
shot from the movie "300" that recreates the battle of Thermopylae.
The man had to spend some time explaining what was his plan. I was there in my office, listening to this amateur historian explained his idea for me to see, like video, a battle that had occurred 2500 years, thanks to astronomy. In the end, but not quite, I think I understood your idea. Try to explain it to you.
When you click the light switch, the bulb lights up immediately and instantly see its light even though we are far away. So it is not strange to think that light travels with infinite speed and therefore takes zero seconds to travel from one place to another, although these two places are far away.
While I personally that I have never believed. Let's see if I need a specific time to walk the 100 meters (I will not say how many seconds or minutes, I need to do so), much as Usain Bolt do it in less time, about 9.58 seconds, Bolt has also taken some . Ie not instantly materialize the target output at zero seconds. It seems incredible that anyone could think that something takes no time in moving from one place to another. Well, this is what I thought of light. That was instant, as the Nesquik.
Fortunately, we now know that light does not have an infinite speed, but simply go too fast (runs 300000 kilometers per second). Of course, that means that seemed instant. The light would take only about 0.3 microseconds to travel the Bolt runs 100 meters in 9.58 seconds.
The delay of the light would begin to notice only when we separated much of the bulb. If, for example, we situate to 300000 miles, the light would take a second to reach us. Is there anything to 300000 miles? Precisely because the moon is more or less at that distance. So, if we light a bulb on Earth, people would soon see the moon turn a second. And vice versa. If the lamp is lit on the moon, we would see light a second later.
Bulbs "in space? What are you talking about? No lights on the moon. At least until McDonalds is not going to the moon to put ads in the M giant to see it from Earth.
no artificial lights, but natural: The stars. For example, the Sun Does it take much sunlight to reach us? Then it takes about 8 minutes to travel from Sun to Earth. In other words, if the sun will go out now we found out to within 8 minutes. So I will be outlining in case you run out of light to read between now and 8 minutes.
Light takes a while to travel from the stars to Earth.
The speed of light allows us to define distances in a curious way. Let's see if the light takes a second to reach Earth's moon and 8 minutes to travel from Sun to Earth, what is closer to the Moon or the Sun? Clearly, no? The Sun
For we say that the Moon is a second-light and the sun is 8 light-minutes. A second is the distance light light travels in one second. One minute, the distance light travels in one minute. And we could define the time-light, week-light, light-year ...
When I mentioned to a friend light year, he asked me: What year was that? The light year is not a measure of time, but away. Is the distance traveled by a ray of light in one year.
Well, in short. When we see the stars and other heavenly bodies are actually seeing as they were in the past. For example, the farthest planet in our solar system, Neptune is 4 light-hours. We see it as it was 4 hours, well before you started reading this text (I was neither awake).
The nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4 light-years. 4 years ago my son Bruno was not yet born (now 3 years). The brightest star in the sky, Sirius is 8.6 light years, about the time that has passed since the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, is at 260 light-years. That is, the light we see from Spica was issued the same year of the death of JS Bach.
The light we see from the Pleiades are issued when Galileo first pointed a telescope at the sky 400 years ago. The light from the nebula NGC6188 is issued when building the pyramids of Egypt, 4500 years ago. The objects of the other side of the Milky Way, their light when the stable land populated by Neanderthals, 100,000 years ago. The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, one of the closest to ours, is 2 million light-years, Earth was inhabited by Homo habilis.
The light we receive from astronomical objects (Neptune, Proxima Centauri, Sirius, Pleiades, NGC6188 and M31) was issued long ago.
- Well, all I could ask to see Leonidas and his 300 at Thermopylae see a mirror that was found at twice the distance in light years that the time has passed since the battle.
Let's see ... The battle of Thermopylae took place 2400 years ago. NGC2170 is located about 2400 light years. In other words, they see the light of the Earth right now was emitted during the battle of Spartans and Persians.
But of course, assuming that there was a mirror there sending the image back to Earth would take another 2400 years to reach us back to us. So we need to find an object in the middle distance. If we put a mirror, for example in the Orion Nebula, M42, located about 1200 light years, the image of Leonidas I came M42 to 1200 years ago and now would be coming back to us bounced in the nice mirror.
NGC2170 (left) emitted its light when the earth of the Battle of Thermopylae.
M42 (right) is halfway.
- Niñaaaaaa! Turn on the video that will empezaaaaar ...!
Unfortunately, there are many reasons why this new version of 300 not going to get ever (not even with quality screaner) The geometric dilution (distant objects are weaker), the scattering of light by the particles of gas and dust between stars, the required increases Orion mirror to see the beard of Leonidas, blocks of light eclipses (for example, imagine that at the time of the battle Greece was at the other end of the earth and was not visible from M42). And besides, do you really expect to have a mirror in the Orion Nebula?
Well, but it's nice to blow up the imagination. I certainly, as we invent hyperspace, the first thing I would do is put a mirror in M42, returning to Earth and buy popcorn.
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